All the Bad Apples
Ratings6
Average rating4.8
15
Ratings6
Average rating4.8
Unflinching and gorgeously written, this feminist novel is important, timely, and a compulsive read. From the highly acclaimed author of the beloved The Accident Season comes an epic breakout novel examining the very topical and controversial issue of women's sexual and reproductive rights, which has never been higher on the public's radar. When Deena's wild older sister Mandy goes missing, presumed dead, Deena refuses to believe it's true. Especially when letters start arriving--letters from Mandy--which proclaim that their family's blighted history is not just bad luck or bad decisions but a curse, handed down to women from generation to generation. Mandy's gone to find the root of the curse before it's too late for Deena. But is the curse even real? And is Mandy still alive? Deena's desperate, cross-country search for her beloved sister--guided only by the notes that mysteriously appear at each destination, leading her to former Magdalene laundry sites and more--is a love letter to women and a heartbreaking cathartic journey.
Reviews with the most likes.
“Tell your story. Speak your truth. Shatter the stigma. Hold your head up to the world and speak so that everyone else who was ever like you can recognize themselves. Can see that they aren't alone. Can see how the past will only keep repeating itself as long as we're kept powerless by our silence.”
Wow. What a beautiful and powerful story.
This is..... compulsively terrifying.
Don't be scared off by the description, which does it absolutely no favours.
Set in Ireland, reaching back into the not so distant past, of mother-and-baby homes and Magdalene laundries, it is a seemless blend of historical fiction, with a healthy dash of magical realism, intertwined with a queer coming of age story, and, above all, a tale of what happens when womans rights - and voices - are cloaked in shame and blame so thick it might as well be buried in the peat moss.
