The Gifts by Liz Hyder is one of my favorite blends: historical fiction with magical realism. Hyder also delivers a well written story with a feminist twist. I felt the premise was smart and intriguing. Yet I struggled to really connect with this book and I think its because of the multiple point of view and short chapters. The short chapters hindered my being able to spend time and connect with each character. I often found myself rereading and restarting chapters as well. I do think it’s a very thought provoking read and will definitely hit its mark for some readers.

Thank you very much to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This didn't quite come together. The pacing is slow for the first two thirds and I found myself distracted. The last third, while more engaging, failed to make up for it's shortcomings. Giving the women modern feminist sensibilities is tricky and this author was a bit heavy handed with her messaging.

I scarcely know what to write about The Gifts. I cannot decide how I feel about this novel. I loved much of Liz Hyder's story, especially the moral dilemma posited. Are the gifts the women's wings? Or are the gifts, as Edward sees them, intended to enhance his scientific authority, and thus, the wings are his gifts? Initially, as I read the description of this novel, I thought the wings would provide a means for women to escape the drudgery, filth, and workhouse world of women's lives. But of course, wings as a means to escape would make this novel too simplistic and lacking in realism. Instead, wings further complicate women's lives, and in The Gifts, even magical realism offers no escape. Wings are a prison..

What didn't work for me--the very brief vignette chapters. These quick looks at each life jump too frequently. Readers need to take notes to keep the characters easily defined. Continuity is lost. Longer chapters would help to make these women come to life with greater ease. I want to become invested into characters lives, which was difficult in The Gifts.

Hyder includes questions for readers at the conclusion of The Gifts. One question asks if men had developed wings, instead of women, would Edward have behaved differently? I think this question is the key to the novel. Edward finds no use for women, except as a means to bring him fame and gratification. How will these winged women best serve his needs, is the question he asks himself. Although it take Edward's wife Annie a long time to realize the truth about her marriage, in the end, she understands that like the winged women, her role is to enhance her husband's reputation. Even religion, and the long Sunday drives to a socially determined church, is designed to serve Edward's reputation. Edward fails to see women as anything other than a possession to enhance his needs. Of course, that was also the truth of women's lives.

Do women need wings to be seen? What a great question to consider.

Thank you to the author and to the publisher for providing this ARC to read, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you also to NetGalley for introducing me to so many interesting novels and authors.

I am so appreciative of a copy. Unfortunately this is just moving too slow for me and I can't seem to relate to any of the characters.

This sounded interesting, but I just didn't connect with the writing style. There are numerous characters, and not enough backstory, which make it hard to connect. The pace was too slow for me to stay engaged.

The premise of The Gifts was intriguing, and many of the characters were nicely fleshed-out and engaging. For me, though, the plot didn't really have the impact I was hoping for. I'd rate the book 3.5 stars, rounded up to four for this review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read it in advance of publication.

Interesting story of three women who developed wings and the scientist who wanted to study them and then release his findings and become famous. But it isn't that easy.

I tried to like this book as the description sounded interesting. But I,couldn’t get into,the authors style of writing and soon lost interest, not wanting to finish.

I would like to start off my review by thanking Sourcebooks Landmark and Netgalley for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review. So let's jump into it!

What if women started to grow wings? A rumor spreads around London in 1840 of a mysterious woman with wings. These winged women are captured by a surgeon who believed these angels were gifted to him by god. Are they doomed to becoming medical experiments?

I'm not gonna lie, this book was incredibly intimidating to me. This story was told through 5 different perspectives. I found myself lost in the beginning trying to keep track of all the different storylines but they came together beautifully. Each chapter was like a puzzle piece coming together to intertwine all the characters. I loved the resilience of the "fallen angels" Etta and Natalya but also Mary, who chased after her story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, overall. There was a lot of themes of science, false idols, and questioning religion. I am not one to typically read historical fiction but this was excellent.

Thank you again Sourcebook Landmark and Netgalley!

The Gifts takes place in the mid 1800’s and shows us women in society at that time. Edward and his friend Samuel are surgeons. Samuel seems to have achieved more notoriety then Edward, and Edward is looking for ways to promote himself. Edward is married to Anne. Edward and Anne attend church every week, but Edward is far from religious until something extraordinary happens.

Edward purchases a corpse that was retrieved from the ocean, that appears to have wings. He dissects it to see what makes her different. He is hopping he has discovered something that will promote him in the scientific world. Then he hears of other women that are very much alive that this also happens to. Now he feels that these were angels sent to him from God. He is the chosen one. He keeps the 2 that are alive locked up in his basement to do research on them until such time as he presents his findings to the scientific society.

His wife Anne has ambitions of her own. She is a budding artist. Edward disregards this as just being a hobby. She gets discussed with all his secretiveness and his crazy actions and leaves and goes to her friend’s

Meanwhile Mary wishes to be a journalist. She gets word of winged women and wishes to follow up on this. She sets out with her friend Richard to find out what she can. This leads them back to Edward’s house and the captive women. Teaming with Anne, they break in and release the women and they fly off together.

When I first started reading this, I thought it was ridiculous. After thinking about it, I realized it was just another fairy tale being used to send a message. Women can be as strong and powerful and can do things to better themselves just as much as men can. This was not something that was an option back in those days but we certainly have come much further along in history. I did feel that there was too much back and forth in the book. It almost made it confusing at times. I do not particularly care for long chapters, but this was a little too much change. .

Thank you Liz and Net Galley for giving me the opportunity to read this pre-release in exchange for an honest review.



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This book, and this review, took me a long time to write. I had to keep coming back to both. And it's because this book is SO thought provoking, and also cause such an emotional reaction from me.

This book forces a feminist eye. It takes the Victoria/Edwardian themes of the Grotesque, the ideas of the Home, the place of both men and women, and throws in a complete overhaul of Freudian theory to boot. What if instead of Man as the rational, logical, being, they made him ruled by emotion? Prone to hysteria? Rules by their greed, their lust, their pride and made that the natural way of things? But with all the sexism of the time as well? And what if women were the logical, knowledge seekers, who fought for their right to have a place in society as a logical person. And what if that knowledge literally gave them wings?

The writing in this book was exquisite, poignant, and descriptive. The characters were fully formed and loved creations, all with their own agency and intent. The hook was amazing at the start of the story. There was absolutely nothing that WOULDN'T make a reader fall in love with this story.

So why was it so hard? Again and again I asked myself this. This book caused me to go into a month long hiatus on reading. Hand to God. I was fighting against the societal norms ingrained in us to appreciate man for what he is and woman for what they are. Now I'm a self proclaimed feminist and am an advocate for fighting micro-aggressions everywhere., but this book really tugged at some of the most ingrained societal norms that I've been raised with. I think that created pushback. There was an almost ominous feeling in this book. I also had a really hard time getting past the violence towards animals, namely dogs, in this book. Murder mystery? No problem! You touch a dog? I apparently don't do that well. There's a reason I still haven't read I Am Legend, or watched the John Wick movies. So fair warning to you all out there.

To some up, this book was an amazing read. It's a bit uncomfortable, it challenges your ingrained perceptions and stereotypes, the norms society forces on us, and makes us question what we are pursuing when we pursue knowledge. Is there really such a think as being rational? Or is it just being human? And what does being human mean?

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley.
This book was not what I expected from the description, but it was very compelling and the female characters captured my interest with their power and strength. A bit of magic in a grim setting made this historical fiction stand out.

A dead woman is fished out of the Thames with small wings on her back. Another feels ill and collapses, a strange feeling overcoming her. Yet another is running through the forest when she feels intense pain and a large set of wings explode from her back. The destinies of each of these women become entangled with surgeon Edward and his obsession to become rich and famous. What future lies ahead for them all?

This book is written from multiple perspectives. It flows well, though I did feel the back and forth between perspectives was more frequent and brief than it needed to be at times. The story makes the reader consider the ideas of ambition and what lengths one might go to in order to achieve one’s goals, the limited roles and opportunities afforded to women in the 1800s, and the fight for freedom and self-determination one might need to pursue. It was an enjoyable and thought provoking story.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC copy of this book.

I wanted to live this book. The idea of following these Victorian women as they lived their lives coupled with magic realism had so much promise.

Unfortunately the endless tiny chapters was such a barrier to losing myself in their stories. I'm fine with multiple points of view and the characters themselves were interesting but chapters should be more than two of three pages. It's like a flipbook of vignettes.

Britannica defines magical realism as “narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction”. The Gifts is a work of magical realism in which otherwise ordinary women suddenly grow wings from their shoulders, often after having suffered traumatic events. It is set in the firmly patriarchal society of 19th century England in the infancy of medical science, where surgeons treated operations as performance and body snatchers did a brisk trade. There is particular focus on one ambitious surgeon, Edward Meake, who in the grip of religious fervour, becomes obsessed with these “angels”. He wishes to achieve acclaim and status by studying them and presenting them to the science community.

Although it is a well-written book, I cannot say that I really enjoyed this one. It has a number of strikes against it in my view.
• There are too many characters and overlapping plots.
• While it may have been a reality of the time period, I found the animal cruelty very disturbing.
• What the heck were the angels supposed to represent? I could speculate on various interpretations, but I don’t really know.
• There were multiple points of view which on a couple of occasions became muddled together and confusing to me.
• The character portrayal tended to be somewhat simplistic – no one is either all good or all bad.

It is a long book but I read through fairly quickly given the extremely short chapters. If you are a fan of magical realism and enjoy this time period then you might appreciate this novel, but for the reasons above it was not a hit with me.

The Gifts by Liz Hyder is an intriguing book set back in the nineteenth century about three women
who have startlingly sprouted wings.
Is this some sort of miracle? Are they freaks of nature? Fear of the unknown abides as well as a fascination from a point of view of science and ambition.
Above all, the women in this novel fight to be seen for themselves.

The Gifts by Liz Hyder took a bit for me to get into because there are many different characters and points of view so it can be hard to keep track of as you get used to it. Overall though I found the story very compelling and I was very drawn into the story and found myself enjoying it

I was enchanted by this spellbinding historical fantasy.
I just reviewed The Gifts by Liz Hyder. #TheGifts #NetGalley
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England in the first half of the 1800's, when men are more concerned with science and knowledge but still believe women are the weaker sex. When rumors start about an Angel of the Thames and people think they've gotten a glimpse of a women with wings, one doctor in particular sets out to find fortune and fame by proving the angel exists. This story has a cast of incredible women who are all just trying to find their place in the world, which is made even harder with the gifts they are given.

I adored this book! It was so easy to get lost in the story. It’s not so much about the gift of wings but of four strong women, the greed for fame, the loss of freedom. A surgeon becomes obsessed with these women with wings and thinks they are a gift to him from God. It was an amazing story, historical fiction, a bit of fantasy and magic.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.