DNF at 41%

I was bored out of my mind. Every character sounds the same and the plot just meanders from scene to scene and with every new stop along the way I asked myself what the point was.

These Women introduced me to the searing, unflinching writing of Ivy Pachoda in her novel of a serial killer stalking sex workers. Sing Her Down takes those descriptors and says - hold my drink.

We meet 4 women, 3 in prison and 1 detective. Kace isn't getting out anytime soon, but we hear her voice throughout the book, along with Marta, the voice inside her head. They are the Greek chorus weaving the story together.

Dios and Florida are granted early release due to COVID. They aren't friends, or even frenemies, but are tied together in an elaborate dive into the meaning of repentance, criminal intent, and freedom.

Detective Lobos needs to suss out who committed a gruesome murder, and why, while facing her own struggle with what it means to be a victim and what pushes someone to break moral limits.

Pachoda builds on the tension of the COVID lockdown days. It's an incredible use of background as mood.

Ivy is an interesting writer. Not a big fan of jumping from character to character as I sometimes find it confusing. However this discord my interest.

I received a free copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

For such a harrowing subject matter, this novel is gorgeously written. With allusions to Cassandra and other women of myth, the story of three ex-cons in contemporary skid row during the onset of the pandemic asks philosophical questions at a breakneck pace. This is a cat and mouse thriller that is compulsively readable. One of the best books of 2023.

Disjointed, ramblings of three women who are in prison- two later get out and a female police detective. Excessive cussing, not even really a plot to the book. Most of the writing is extremely hard to follow, does not flow at all, difficult to tell what exactly the author was trying to convey other than craziness. Not for me at all.

Thanks to Netgalley my my advanced electronic reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This novel begins in a violent women's prison in Arizona, with the voices of three women. There's Kace, who hears the voices of the dead; Florida, who comes from an affluent family from Hancock Park and who was so high when she drove her boyfriend away from where he set a fire that killed a man, that she has no memory of it; and Dios, who loves singing <i>narcocorridos</i> and being feared for her random acts of extreme violence. When both Dios and Florida are paroled at the start of the pandemic, Florida impulsively jumps on an illegal bus to Los Angeles, hoping to go home. But Dios follows her onto the bus and before the bus reaches its destination, both Dios and Florida are not just breaking parole, they are on the run.

This is a novel not about the pandemic, but set in a dystopian Los Angeles ravaged by the shuttering of businesses and the explosion of homelessness. Centered on the skid row neighborhoods around downtown, there's a real feel of hopelessness and of end times to this world, despite its proximity to the comfortable Tudor-style manors and shady avenues of Hancock Park. There's a recurring character from her previous novel, These Women, who serves to ground this novel while Florida and Dios circle each other in a way that feels like a Western, albeit one with an urban setting.

There's a lot of over-the-top violence at the start of this novel and while that isn't something that usually bothers me, Pochoda's writing made it just that bit more vivid and real. It's a wild beginning, that leaves the reader ready for anything. Pochoda is an interesting author and her version of Los Angeles, one of dirty street corners and a capacity to explode into violence at a moment's notice, is a compelling one.

Title: Sing Her Down
Author: Ivy Pochoda
Release Date: May 23rd, 2023
Page Count: 277
Format: Netgalley
Start Date: May 14th, 2023
Finish Date: May 18th, 2023

Rating: 3 Stars

Review:

This story takes place shortly after the pandemic where everything went into lockdown. Two women are released early from prison because of it. They are sent to be quarantined in a motel for two weeks before moving on to their permanent location where they will spend their parole. Things don’t go according to plan at all. I got so many vibes from this book. I’m going to be honest, I’m still left reeling. I may have to buy an audiobook copy of this book to read again. It was kind of all over the place. I didn’t hate it, but I can’t say I was fully in love with it either. I’m still glad that I read it. It’s really interesting to read books that have been written since the pandemic.

A powerful read with characters you will remember long after you finish reading. This is a must read thriller that does not disappoint. Thank you NetGalley, MCD and Ivy Pochoda for the advance read copy of this book.

Visceral, propulsivec and raw, I found myself utterly addicted to this fury cry from start to finish.

<B>”You won’t believe what women can do”</b>

I’m not sure what I expected when I started this but from the first chapter, this just felt so different. It’s edgy, it’s gritty, it felt wholly full of fury and barely restrained violence in a way that manages to tap into your darkest fears, desires, and full on furies.

This exposes the violence and seething underbelly society often refuses to see as a part of women, as well as the circumstances that breed and fuel such discontent. Set against the backdrop of the emerging pandemic, Sing Her Down brings us on a journey of reckoning with our darkest impulses of the acutest and most unapologetic fashion.

<b>“this was a demonstration of power by someone who wants to be seen.” </b>

Alternating between equal parts dangerous obsession and edge between two newly freed convicts, and an examination of the brutality women can be subjected to that begets it’s own rage and vengeance, Sing Her Down was unputdownable at times. While certainly popcorn entertainment worth at moments, what I relished was the deliciously wicked moments in where the females on the story tapped into their emotions, their anger, their boredom, their desire to simply shock and assert power. It was glutinous at times but also vividly refreshing and gripping.

While I certainly believe the story beats could have been tighter and certain storylines certainly fleshed out more, including the one about domestic violence, I did find this wholly engrossing and interesting. The narration was wonderful, adeptly capturing the story pacing and feelings to emote the highest of highs and introspective quieter moments.

Overall, a very enjoyable read. Excited for what’s next from the author! This gritty, action filled western take of sorts is not to be missed!

Thank you to FSG Books for sending an advance copy of this book.

I love Ivy Pachoda. I thought this was great, fresh in its depiction of several women on the brink of explosion. The moments of violence are startling. I've seen this described as a modern western, and I think that fits. It's gritty. As in her previous books, Pachoda does an amazing job of bringing Los Angeles to life.

Check out These Women and Wonder Valley, too.

If grit lit is your thing, run don’t walk to Sing Her Down. This is a one sit, edge of your seat read that I think belongs in most bags this summer. Well paced, not overly done twists and turns, and enough character development in few pages made this a win for me.

In a time where there seems to be no end of great crime fiction, here's a contender as one of the best books of the year. SING HER DOWN cements Ivy Pochoda as one of the great noir chroniclers of L.A.

The story is simple: During the opening days of the COVID pandemic, two women are given compassionate early parole from prison. Florence "Florida" Baum wants nothing more than to keep on running from her past, even denying it to others and herself. Her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, knows the truth about Florida, however, and she believes she is key to Florida seeing the truth about herself. From sun-bleached Arizona to the undomiciled camps of L.A., Florida and Dios circle and pursue each other, with a determined female police detective harboring her own secrets close behind.

Pochoda writes in razor-sharp prose that harkens to Cormac McCarthy, James Ellroy, and Jordan Harper but feels distinct to her voice as it cuts into the hearts and minds of the female characters. Pochoda explores the female capacity for violence while also detailing the horrors of the pandemic. It's often a nightmare on the page, and the pages will keep turning once started.

Her previous book, the extraordinary THESE WOMEN, put Pochoda in my must-read list. SING HER DOWN makes her a must-buy.

NetGalley ARC

3.5 stars

Dios and Florida are both serving time in an Arizona prison when they are released early due to COVID. Florida wants to forget prison and return to her privileged life as Florence Baum. Dios wants to force Florida to acknowledge the darkness inside her. As Florida flees to Los Angeles Dios follows her, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.

This was such an interesting book. It is told in four perspectives: Dios, Florida, the detective chasing them and Florida's old cellmate. Florida and Dois's lives prior to prison are mere sketch, what's important is who they are now. Florida desperately runs around Los Angels in a desperate escape from Dios. The confrontation at the end is perfect.

What I really enjoyed about this book is the depiction of early Pandemic period. Los Angeles in April 2020 seen as a wasteland. Highways are empty, tent cities pop up from nowhere. It captures the strangeness of the time.

This was a bit too dark and violent for my taste so I couldn't go through with it. The premise was very intriguing but the execution kinda scary.

The latest novel from critically acclaimed novelist Ivy Pochoda starts promisingly, in a women’s correctional facility in Arizona. One of our narrators, Kace, has voices in her head. She seems to understand unerringly what’s going on in the world around her however: courtesy, she claims, of the plaintive dead that only she can hear. Her new cellmate Florida, formerly Florence, has beef with their neighbor Dios. Dios herself seems obsessed with Florida, constantly taunting the latter about taking responsibility for the will to wanton violence that she’s convinced the two women share.

It’s prisonhouse politics as usual, but the outside world has its own surprises in store for these three of our viewpoint characters. A pandemic is spreading, one that won’t leave even these semi-isolated women alone:

QUOTE
Kace is too far gone and fired up. Her voice is sinking into a new register. “You want to kill us all. Shut the fuck up with your coughing. You goddamn fucking murderer. Murderer.”

A moment of silence falls. Florida can sense everyone holding their breath, a strangulated tension that catches the block in its death grip and is only punctuated when another attack of coughing arrives.

Kace raises both fists to the wall. “There’s murder in your breath. Death inside of you. You keep it in there. You keep it, or I’ll steal your breath for good. Lock it deep inside you. So deep you won’t goddamn need it ever or again.”
END QUOTE

When COVID-19 protocols grant both Florida and Dios early release, Florida finds herself living in isolation in a motel, checking in with her parole officer via a cell phone provided to her by the Department of Corrections. When the intermittent food deliveries organized by the state abruptly end, a hungry Florida goes in search of food but finds temptation instead. A ghost bus will take her back to her hometown of Los Angeles for only twenty-five bucks. Acting on impulse, she buys a ticket. Crossing state lines is a parole violation that will send her right back to jail, but all she wants to do is go home and be reunited with her beloved classic Jaguar. She figures she can grab her car and be back in Arizona before her parole officer even notices she’s missing.

But just as the bus is about to leave, Dios shows up. She boards the bus and harrasses Florida, who is well and truly sick of her even before another rider they both know gets on at their next stop. Unable to stand Dios and the new passenger both, Florida takes off before reaching LA, and must figure out how to get back to the place where the one symbol of freedom and hope left to her awaits, or so she has to believe.

Shortly after the women’s illicit flight from Arizona, Detective Lobos of the LAPD is assigned to a new investigation. A passenger on a ghost bus has been murdered. Lobos is having a hard time getting her head in the game, as she’s trying not to jump at ghosts from her personal life herself. When her investigations put her on the trail of Florida and Dios, these personal issues cause her to sympathize with the rage she sees reflected inside her suspects:

QUOTE
Lobos knows how quickly things can slip. How one minute you are staunch in your independence, your confidence, your certainty that you are operating aware of the danger around you but not compromised by it. And the next you are in that danger or, in Florence Baum’s case, perhaps you <i>are</i> that danger.

When do you become the thing you’ve kept at bay?

When do you become the abused or the abuser?

When do you become someone frightened in your own home, rage-numbed and cowering?

When do you become the person for whom violence is easily within arm’s reach?
END QUOTE

As Kace and her chorus of voices narrate the tale from Arizona, the three other women find themselves gravitating towards a deadly showdown at high noon in a Los Angeles turned into a ghost town by pandemic lockdown restrictions. It’s a modern-day Western that showcases violence by women, saying that it’s okay to be angry without needing a rationalization that diminishes the emotion.

And as someone who grew up constantly being told I was angry – I wasn’t, but it was a convenient label for someone who didn’t believe in going along just to get along – I get that. It’s weird that certain parts of society think that women aren’t or shouldn’t be capable of the same breadths and depths of emotion that men are. But I also think it’s weird that this book explores, mostly through Lobos’ investigations, rich white Florida’s possible motivations for murder while the Latina Dios’ more interesting point of view is sidelined, her descent into sociopathy presented as a given instead of a fascinating subject all on its own. At no point did I understand her obsession with Florida, and I had little sympathy for the idea that any of their impulsively violent actions were somehow justified by an inability to process their society-bred rage otherwise.

Ivy Pochoda writes with style, and often with nuance. Sing Her Down is a successor, of sorts, to These Women, her previous literary thriller that examines female agency and social change through the lens of fiction. Her latest novel is a fast, stylish read that will likely please her fans.

I had previously read These Women by Ivy Pochoda and I knew that I wanted to read more by her. I really loved it and when I got the chance to read Sing Her Down, I couldn’t turn it down. This book had that same real, raw writing style that sucked me into the depths of Pochoda’s writing! I love how descriptive and raw her style is and I felt that same darkness in this book as well. The two women in this story—Florida and Dios, were both interesting women, having met in a prison prior to being released and the cat and mouse game begins. The story describes time in prison as well as when both women are released. I really enjoyed the graphic nature of this book, but I can understand that that’s not for everyone. Overall, I thought this was a thought provoking, great book and I continue to be an Ivy Pochoda fan!

Ivy Pochoda is not as prolific as many of her contemporaries in crime fiction, but she is arguably one of the most unique and distinctive voices in the genre. Case in point, her new novel Sing Her Down is a compact (288 pages), tightly wound juggernaut of a narrative briming with new insights and fresh observations about female relationships, gendered wrath, and social inequities.

In Sing Her Down, Ivy Pochoda has crafted two fierce women who will forevermore be considered iconic characters in crime fiction’s evolution. Florence “Florida” Baum and Diana Diosmary Sandoval are simultaneously very similar and utterly unique, a dichotomous union that seems almost impossible to create and even harder to navigate. Their complex dynamic is rooted in their histories—both independent and shared—and once the reader has traveled only a few pages with them, that bond—between the real and the fictional—is forged for life.

The early chapters of Sing Her Down, which are set in an Arizona women’s prison, establish the gritty tenor that will continue throughout the novel. Fans of shows like the vintage Prisoner: Cell Block H and the more recent Orange is the New Black will find themselves in familiar territory here, but Pochoda manages to circumvent the expected even in these early sections, almost forcing her readers to take a new look at these stereotypes and shattering illusions about the types of roles women are “allowed” to play.

Dios knows the truth about Florida (or at least thinks she does) and she seems hellbent on making sure everyone else realizes it as well—including Florida herself. When the Covid pandemic leads the prison system to opt for allowing some prisoners early release to stem the spread of the virus, both Dios and Florida are included, setting into motion an outside confrontation that was destined to happen eventually. The cat-and-mouse chase between these women, further complicated by the detective hot on their trail, fuels the action, keeping the novel’s pages turning at lightning speed.

Ivy Pochoda takes readers on a journey—from prison, first to a seedy motel, and then to the very streets of Los Angeles—in an effort to demonstrate how life in prison and life in general often aren’t that different for these women. Through multiple points of view, Pochoda skillfully portrays the building anger that resides in the souls of these women—and maybe by extrapolation, most women—due to the pressures of societal expectations, attitudes, and governance. While the writing almost sings in a poetic manner, the sizzling underbelly of frustration and fury boils until an explosion is the only possible net result.

Sing Her Down is a violent book. Ivy Pochoda has crafted a noir gem—blackened coal that ultimately becomes a diamond while under extreme pressure. Despite the slimness of the volume, the reading experience is an intense journey that may not be right for all readers. But for those who do venture along with Florida and Dios, the destination proves worthy of the perilous path. There is no telling what Ivy Pochoda will write next, but her many fans—new and old—will be anxiously awaiting its release.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Look for it now in your local and online bookstores and libraries.

⭐️⭐️

Florence “Florida” Baum and Diosmary Sandoval are in a women’s prison in Arizona after being convicted of separate violent crimes. They are former cellmates, but their relationship has become increasingly volatile. When, due to the pandemic, they are both released early, Florida wants to move beyond her past, and live her life, but Dios becomes obsessed with Florida and wants her to realize her “true” self. At first, Florida tries to run from Dios, but when she realizes she can’t, the stage is set for a showdown between the two women.

I didn’t like this book. There. That’s blunt. It is described as a gritty, feminist Western thriller. Okay, I’m not a fan of Westerns, but it’s set basically in present day (2020) and not the dusty Old West. It’s also called gritty, feminist, and a thriller. Those things are right up my alley, so why didn’t I like this book? The characters are unlikeable, but that’s not a deal breaker for me. Unfortunately, I just never felt invested in the story, and I didn’t care what happened to the characters. While I thought it was very well-written, it was not the book for me.

Ivy Pochoda is such a masterful storyteller and Sing Her Down does not disappoint. Part one begins in a woman's prison with Kace, a inmate who hears the dead speak, who tells us who the players are and how the story will end. The main protagonists are Florence "Florida" Baum and "Dios" Sandoval. Both inmates are give early release and so begins a tale of cat and mouse. Dios, obsessed with Florida, follows her leaving a dead body in her wake. The women end up in Los Angeles during the pandemic and are soon pursued by Lobos, a female detective, in search of a killer. All these characters have a darkness within them. Is it because of their past choices and circumstances or is it just who they are?
This story is dark and brutal so maybe not for everyone but I loved it, I was sucked in immediately and was caught up in it until the end. 4 stars! Grateful to NetGalley for this ARC.

Kace will open this story by telling us how it ends. Sort of. The Arizona prison where Kace is confined releases Dios and Florida to ease inmate density during the pandemic. Florida makes her way to Los Angeles with Dios in pursuit. Kace’s friend tells her there is a mural painted behind a gas station on Olympic and Western. It’s living, her friend says, a paint job that moves. Why not, Kace thinks. She hears voices of the dead, a library of them, so why can’t a mural be alive? The mural shows Dios’s snake eyes fixed on Florida, the wind lifting a stray hair. Florida is striding toward Dios, something in hand, state-issued boots hitting asphalt. “Now, I don’t know what-all happened between here and there,” Kace says. “I only know what I’ve been told.”

This opening demonstrates Pochoda’s talent. It will grab readers by the throat and hold them to the end as they hear from each woman, disturbed in her own way. The story will dig at our preconceptions that women are gifted with a special nature. One that is passive, nurturing, maternal, not prone to violent aggression. That dark impulse is reserved for men, those responsible for ninety percent of murders worldwide. A woman might be a victim lashing out or have a mental illness, but she never, ever kills for the visceral satisfaction of taking a life. Dios disagrees.

“They’ll be telling our story for generations,” Dios will say when the end is near. “Yours, mine, and Florida’s. A tale of violent women. A song for the ages with a surprise ending.”

Much appreciation to Farrar, Straus & Giroux and NetGalley for providing this eARC.