Thanks to Netgalley and Celadon Books for the ARC of this!
What an interesting look at motherhood and childhood! I can totally see the comparisons to Margaret Atwood and The Lottery, I was drawn right into to this almost sinister town with its disappearing mothers. The main character, whose POV we see the story from, talks about it as idyllic, but in such a way that I was low-key creeped out. The way that they treat an outsider, or stranger, the way they talk about elsewhere, the way they interact with each other, just had me unable to look away, they were compelling in their darkness. As a mother myself, the idea that I could just disappear with almost no warning from my child’s life and then just be erased, through giving up all my possessions and every image of me (more to self: be in more pictures even if it’s hard) and to know and fear that it could be coming for you was unsettling. I don’t want to say too much about her experience, to avoid spoilers, but to say, I was so mad at myself that I didn’t figure some things out sooner
What an interesting look at motherhood and childhood! I can totally see the comparisons to Margaret Atwood and The Lottery, I was drawn right into to this almost sinister town with its disappearing mothers. The main character, whose POV we see the story from, talks about it as idyllic, but in such a way that I was low-key creeped out. The way that they treat an outsider, or stranger, the way they talk about elsewhere, the way they interact with each other, just had me unable to look away, they were compelling in their darkness. As a mother myself, the idea that I could just disappear with almost no warning from my child’s life and then just be erased, through giving up all my possessions and every image of me (more to self: be in more pictures even if it’s hard) and to know and fear that it could be coming for you was unsettling. I don’t want to say too much about her experience, to avoid spoilers, but to say, I was so mad at myself that I didn’t figure some things out sooner