Blood Water Paint is a historical fiction story in poetry and prose. It weaves the stories of figures like Judith, Suzannah, and others with our protagonist's story to emphasize the struggles of women from antiquity to now. It's pretty heartbreaking in a lot of places and the writing is beautiful, though I think I would have liked it better if I had read it instead of listening to it. Ultimately though the tone felt a little too "angry feminist" to me, something I'm usually not very fond of in books. It wasn't bad by any means, just not really for me.

There are some scenes of rape, torture, and mutilation, so if you're sensitive to those things I would know that going into it.