Review: Gather the Daughters

Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dystopian society. Religious cult.

As the story opens we find Vanessa, one of the protagonists, dreaming of her daughters at the beach. As they wade into the water she is first yelling for them to come back, then to go away and never come back. The rest of the story is the explanation of why. Vanessa and the other girls are living in a dystopian hell for women. I can't really explain further without giving away too much. Suffice it to say that the ten families that originally settled on the island have revised the commandments to their own devices.

This book is confrontational and in-your-face. Highly thought-provoking, but also terrifying. The writing is uneven and wavers between ornate and childish. The actions of the characters were usually unrealistic. Just enough was revealed to horrify the reader but not enough to explain why the ancestors ended up on the island. What happened in the world outside? I found the book lacking in enough areas that my rating is a 2.5. I found it unfinished with too much left to the imagination.

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