I didn't quite get the hype. The atmosphere was stunning, but it took me a long time to get into it, and even then, some aspects of the world building and plot didn't click.

It was especially hard to read about her murdering her companions. While some definitely chose that, those who were suffering from memory loss might have lived happily for longer, and those who died later might not have chosen their early end if others hadn't set that precedent before them. Of course, in excruciating pain one might long to die. But she said her self near the end, that between those bouts of pain she can't imagine wanting death. So taking the deaths of the other women into her own hands (literally) seemed wrong.

It was frustrating the times that the reader was reminded how little the child knew, only for her to then describe things she should have no knowledge of.

She talks about how Anthea fails to teach her how to swim, but when she's alone she swims by herself? The women have no medicine, but they can make a hot compress (out of what?)

She says, "I cannot mourn for what I have not known," but many of us mourn for a past or future or place or person we can only imagine. It was frustrating as well how little the women

once they were free. They had been tortured and possibly drugged, but eventually they were able to create buildings and carve and sing. They could have lived more happily, making new art and connections. This also felt very wrong and almost eugenicist, implying that without men or capitalism, these women only could look forward to death.

This book will definitely haunt me, but maybe not in the way it lingers with other readers.