sittingwishingreading's Reviews (880)

I love the idea of a horror book centered around intergenerational trauma, legacy burdens, and Black women homesteading in rural Montana. I think horror is an excellent genre for this to play with showing the very real fears that existed for these women. I think the dynamics of the town itself were very well done, I just had a really hard time keeping the characters straight. This might’ve been my mindset, this might have been the fact that I listen to it on audio, but I never really felt fully sucked into this story. 

I’m finding that I love Victor LaValle’s imagination, but I don’t always love his execution. I liked, didn’t love, The Changeling, which only had a few central characters, and in Lone Women I felt like the characters were not distinct enough for me to fully track the actions in the book. What started off as really distinct characters ended up bleeding together because I think it was the characters’ situations that made them distinct, rather than their character development. Once they were all homesteading and in this nightmare of a homesteading town, the distinctions bled together. 

I would love to hear from some people who loved this book, and the audiobook might have been getting in the way of my enjoyment of this book. I think the book has real potential, I just didn’t feel as engaged with it as I wanted to be.

Ayad Akhtar is straight-faced in his telling about the way we change opinions and perspective as we live. This book spans the protagonist’s relationship with his father, the first Trump presidency, and the critical consciousness he has grown as he has navigated xenophobia and Islamophobia in the world. 

Aktar does not aim for the protagonist to be likable in this book, but the protagonist does work to be honest in reflecting on himself and others. I found his commentary and anecdotes astute and important as Akhtar weaves a larger narrative of the protagonist’s life from singular or loosely related anecdotes and stories in his chapters. The protagonist is a man with charisma, a man who has struggled, and a man who has watched two immigrant parents and family friends grapple with the violence caused by the US to their home, Pakistan, and surrounding countries (most notably in this novel is Afghanistan). 

I really appreciated the way Akhtar wove history and personal narrative together, folded past and present insights alongside each other, and really brought a book that is greater than the sum of its parts to the table. I, personally, thought the first half was stronger than the second half, but really appreciated all that Akhtar said in this book.