This was just okay. I am glad I borrowed this book from a friend b and didn't buy it as a BOTM pick or just by happenstance because it was just okay. It started off strong enough but then it seemed like the author felt she had to wrap it quickly to turn it in. And even then, it was a very ambiguous ending with no real answers.

Which I guess is part of the point since we don't really know why some people are barren and others aren't. But a little bit of closure on something would have been nice. And we got that for nobody in the story at all. While I felt Ada was pretty naive in a lot of things and made tons of poor choices, I also didn't like the majority of the Hole in the Wall gang either because of how they treated her. You have to learn certain skills and they expected her, unfairly, to have them ready and rearing to go.

Now, don't get me wrong; Ada made a lot of dumb mistakes but she was also only teenager and expected to make those. I feel the deck was stacked against her, not just in terms of how the world viewed women as walking uteruses (and honestly not much has changed in that regard) but still there were some choices she made that you knew was going to bite her in the end. And they did.

For me, there was only one likeable character apart from Ada (and even I had to take her with a grain of salt) and it did not end well for them. I had to remind myself that it was a borrowed book because I wanted to throw it when I got to that part.

All that it's not a bad book and it is something that could be discussed at length in a Women's Studies class. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. It's not mediocre but it's not phenomenal either. It's somewhere hence it's just...okay.