Cw: sexual assault

This book is a sleeping lion of a story. I expected something slow and quiet, but the farther I listened, the more I realized that’s exactly what the heroines of the story are banking on: that others will think they are “just women talking”, when they are planning action that will shake their lives and their community.

Inspired by true events of Mennonite women and girls being drugged and raped by men in their communities, the heroines of this story are given two days to figure out their next steps while all the men of the village are in the city arrange bail for those who perpetuated the abuse. They discuss three options: do nothing, stay and fight, and leave. In deciding, they explore their relationship with their religion and god, each other, their children and husbands, and their community, and ask themselves what justice means to them in such a patriarchal society. Accompanying the women is August Epp, a man who had returned to the community after his family was excommunicated. Being literate (and, in his words, barely seen as a man), he records the discussion for posterity at the request of the women. 

I felt that for a book that is purely talk, it is fast-paced and intense. There is tension in every page as the women struggle with such a big decision in a short time. Some wrestle with a desire for justice versus their religious pacifism. Others struggle to reconcile their image of their god with the harm put upon them. They all engage in philosophy, theology, and more to determine which of the three options they should choose, and what they are willing to give up for their own freedom and sense of justice. 

I won’t reveal the ending, but I can tell you the book keeps you hanging on to the very end. The tension rises as the men get closer and closer to home, and the women wrestle with the most difficult decision of their lives that will change them and their children’s lives forever. This is my favourite Toews novel I’ve read and am so excited to see it in film later this year!