Comments on: Gather the Daughters

By: Katie @ Doing Dewey

Katie @ Doing Dewey — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 20:04:51 +0000

Wow, this sounds incredibly creepy! I’d read a synsopsis, but I’m not sure it mentioned the socially sanctioned, incestuous rape. I’m not sure I’ll be picking this one up, but I am glad to have learned more about it from your review 🙂

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 18:14:13 +0000

In reply to Rory. She was amazing in how she let it creep up. At first I thought, obedience- not my way, but OK. Then, it was the reality of what those men did- and how it destroyed the mother-daughter relationship. I was so repulsed I kept pushing the book away.

By: Rory

Rory — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 17:14:20 +0000

I liked this one, and I thought Melamed did a fantastic job of filling it will dread and – I agree with you – absolute revulsion.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 21:43:25 +0000

In reply to Susie | Novel Visits. Thank you! I agree that the fact that Melamed never got too explicit was key in the novel. Instead, it was as if it was so expected that no one made a big deal about it. She put you in their minds- and exploded the whole thing. You're not wrong about Janey's father. That's why she didn't want to grow up- she was not experiencing what her friends were. He was sad and I really hoped she would an avenging angel.

By: Susie | Novel Visits

Susie | Novel Visits — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 18:51:37 +0000

You did a great job with this review. I love how you explained the horror of the island as being on a visceral level. I thought Melamed was brilliant in building that tension without ever explicitly explaining it. I think she also left some to the reader’s interpretation. For example, I didn’t think that Janey’s father followed the dictate of the ancestors. Was I wrong about that? I’d love to see more discussion of Gather the Daughters.