🐉RATING: 🔥🔥🔥🔥/5 ✨WITCHY WEDNESDAY✨ The Women Could Fly, by Megan Giddings, is a creative, engaging social critique, wrapped in a modern-day fantasy. It’s the perfect read for anyone frustrated by the recent restrictions on women’s health and autonomy. Giddings depicts a vivid and terrifyingly oppressive world for women, and setting the story in our modern world significantly increases the discomfort level. In this alternate reality, unmarried women are treated with suspicion and monitored for indications of witchcraft. At age 28, single women must register with the Bureau of Witchcraft and be tested. Those unmarried at age 30 lose their jobs and other liberties. Married women, whose freedoms are determined by their husbands, don’t fare much better. The mashup of puritan ideas with the 21st century should evoke dissonance. But with the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade, these fictional laws subjugating women don’t feel far from our current reality. The plot’s main conflict occurs when Josephine, age 28, has to choose between a life of freedom, isolated on an island of witches, and the life she’s worked to build for herself. The island world Giddings creates is equally inviting and disturbing. Do the comforts of friends, family, and a job she loves outweigh the risks of a return to the larger society? I enjoyed how the author explores themes of freedom from multiple angles, including the freedom to love. If women are pressured to marry before the age of 30, are they able to find true love? Any relationship risks being hindered by resentment, even with the most generous and caring spouse. Josephine wonders if it’s love she feels or the comfort of safety? The Women Could Fly would be a great book club pick. While sexism and freedom are the main themes, the story can easily spark discussions of family, friendship, abandonment, and racism. Thank you to @amistadbooks, @harpercollins and @netgalley for access to this eARC. #booksandcoffeeinaugust22 #thewomencouldfly #megangiddings #witchywednesday #dystopianfiction #fantasyreader #fantasybooks #netgalleyreads #arcreader #bookclubreads #bookreview #bookrecommendations #bookquotes #bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/ChXghm3r6xs/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
