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Woman 99

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This was SUCH an interesting book, about a topic I’d never though much about - female asylums back before women really had rights. When women could be locked up for fighting back against an abusive man, cheating on her husband, or merely speaking her mind. This book gives you an inside look on the process, as told by a sane woman who fakes insanity to rescue another patient. It’s fresh, it’s different, and while I found the main character to be hard to identify with, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

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Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this ARC. This has not impacted my review.

This is the first book by Greer Macallister I've read and it won't be the last. This is a story of women's courage and loyalty. Charlotte's sister suffers from what we would today call bi-polar disorder. She is sent by her parents to a care facility to keep her from preventing a good match and increasing her family's fortunes. But Charlotte loves her sister dearly and decides to get herself admitted and break her sister out.

Charlotte discovers that some of the women re there not because they are insane but to hide them away because they are an embarrassment to their families. Broken into nine different wards, Charlotte's mission to find her sister is complicated. In addition, she is witness to mistreatment of the patients. As Charlotte works to find her sister and come up with an escape plan she finds herself going back memories of the events leading up to her sister's banishment. She also creates friendships along the way.

Filled with interesting characters and strong historical details, the reader is propelled forward, holding her breath and hoping for justice. I encourage you to take the journey with her.

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Woman 99 is a gorgeous portrayal of the power of women's courage and strength.

Two sisters Phoebe and Charlotte Smith grew up in San Francisco in the 1800's. Both sisters had issues with growing up in their high society. Charlotte is forced to marry a man that she doesn't love and her sister Phoebe stands up for her. In turn, Phoebe is placed in an insane asylum. Charlotte is devastated and her only goal is to get her sister back.

In order to get her sister back, Charlotte gets her self committed to the asylum as well. Let's just say that the treatments and brutal background of the asylum is awful. Physical and emotional abuse to the extreme. The amount of research the author did in regards to the environment was impressing.

I found the descriptions to be beautiful yet dark. Despite having the dark side, the story unfolds a true portrayal of the strength of these two sisters that is unbreakable. I loved the strength of all the women in this story and the friendships along the way in the asylum.

I do have to say it was a tad slow in the beginning and was hard to connect. Once, it took off I was enjoying it.

Overall, 3.5 stars for Woman 99

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the arc.

Publication date: 3/5/19
Published to Goodreads: 2/12/19

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Started out slow, but the ending was solid! Woman 99 by Greer Macallister was one of those titles that I went back and forth with. The beginning started out a bit choppy, with a lack of flow to the writing, but about halfway through I started becoming more interested and involved with the characters and the ending really pulled it all together!
I’ve always been fascinated by historical fiction or historical mysteries that are set in or about an insane asylum. There are many heartbreaking tales of women who were committed because they crossed a powerful man, they acted in a way that was unorthodox, or for many other reasons. I’m fascinated by these stories, and so when I read the synopsis of Woman 99 I knew it was a book for me! And I did enjoy it, it just took awhile for me to get into the read and feel connected to it.
Told in first person, our main character is Charlotte, a twenty year old woman in San Francisco. Her older sister, Phoebe, is committed to Goldengrove, a “Progressive Home for the Curable Insane”, in Napa Valley. Charlotte, angered by her parents’ decision to commit Phoebe, runs away from home and succeeds in becoming an inmate herself in the same asylum as Phoebe, with the goal of rescuing her sister.
Charlotte started out the book as incredibly naïve, and this was one of the reasons I struggled to connect early on. The premise really didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and felt a bit too “easy”. Charlotte is immediately committed to Goldengrove, and so this led me to a lot of questions. Was it really that easy to be committed? Were there no other asylums in the area? Charlotte believes that she’ll go into Goldengrove, and get Phoebe out quickly. At one point Charlotte mentions that she will “invoke my father’s name” to get Phoebe out, and all I kept thinking was, didn’t the father send her there to begin with? So, how will invoking his name get her out? Her lack of thinking things through was really irritating, but then as the book went along, and Charlotte learned more and became more worldwise, it got more interesting.
Another issue I had was with how convenient many things were. As I said above, Charlotte immediately gets sent to Gardengrove. There was no struggle for her to get there, no worry that she’d be sent somewhere else. While in Goldengrove, she comes across a map easily, and is able to don nurse’s garb at will, and even manages to make friends with the superintendent, who happens to be a wordy drunk. There are also some continuity issues that I noticed, particularly when she’s able to get a skeleton key made. Many of these issues happen towards the beginning of the book, where the writing felt the choppiest. At one point in my notes I wondered if the book was a YA book (nothing wrong with that!), as the book didn’t have that grittiness to it that I was expecting. Which I was quite fine with it not being graphic, it was just different than how I thought it was going to be!
Once I got over my frustration with the convenience of certain plot points and Charlotte’s “we’’ll be out in a week” attitude, and I stopped nitpicking the book, then I really started to enjoy it! There was one plot reveal towards the end that completely surprised me – but one that made such perfect sense that looking back I can’t see how I missed it. I love, love, love it when reveals happen that way, and really enjoyed that Woman 99 was able to surprise me and keep me engaged at the end. While the beginning was rough for me, the last third of the book had me on the edge of my seat and I couldn’t put the book down! So, overall, I did enjoy the book and thought it had a solid ending.

Bottom Line: Convenience issues aside, I did enjoy this!

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I loved this book!!! This was a first for me by this author and I was engaged in this story from page one!!! Highly recommend

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This story initially sounded interesting, but far from being a thriller as the blurb claims, it was slow-moving and had endless, tedious flashbacks which I took to skipping in short order because they were so boring and pointless. They had, from what I could see before I began skipping them, no bearing on the actual story, and served only to interrupt it with annoying regularity.

So, every few screens I would read how this girl would reassert her need to focus on finding her sister Phoebe and rescuing her from the asylum, but then she would predictably meander back to the la-la land of asylum minutiae, behaviors, and politics, rather than focus on how to find which ward Phoebe was in so she could contact her. When she wasn't lost in that, she was lost in the past. It quickly became tediously repetitive. Had Yoda been a doctor there he would have diagnosed her as "Never her mind on where she was; what she was doing."

Flashbacks, in my experience, are rarely contributory. I just think they represent poor writing and they also unnecessarily interrupt the story. There are better ways of referencing past events than simply stopping the story and irritating the reader with yet another info dump, especially if it's irrelevant which, in this case, was consistently true. The flashbacks did not relate to the current story at all. All they 'contributed' was to tell an irrelevant backstory of this girl's relationship with her sister and her fiancé and this other guy she had the hots for, so clichéd love triangle. Barf. And this wasn't the story that was advertised! It was certainly not the story I wanted to read.

Sometimes it began to sound like this girl was herself an unreliable narrator because in the current story she was dissing her fiancé, whereas in the backstory she seemed less antagonistic, but it was b-o-r-i-n-g, which is why I quit reading them. I never felt like I needed to go back and read any of the flashbacks to understand what was happening in the present so what was the point? The current story and the flashbacks seemed to be completely separate stories, and at no time in the current story did she ever refer back to anything that happened in the past.

In another instance of her schizophrenia, I read that on the one hand that "If I confessed the whole truth, I’d be sent back to my parents quick as a wink," and on the other, a mere few lines later she claims, "And if I didn’t do something drastic, all my days would be like this, for all the time to come." I'm sorry? Either she can get out of the asylum by confessing or she's stuck there no matter what! It can't simultaneously be both. The fact that she thinks it can be calls her own sanity into question!

There was another point where I began to think she truly was insane and this story about her going there to rescue her sister was something she made up to 'rationalize' her presence in the asylum. It crossed my mind is that her understanding of why her older sister was there was in error - that her sister had been put there because her fiancé had been having a relationship with her or something. But I honestly didn't care enough at that point about either of these possibilities to continue reading, and I DNF'd it at around the fifty percent mark.

The reason for this was that the current story wasn't much better than the flashbacks, quite honestly. When she found the room her sister was supposedly in, and snuck in to visit, the woman in there was not her sister, but some Russian woman who was using her sister's name. After an agonizing few pages with flashbacks, she finally figured out that her sister and this woman had swapped places. Then - and how she made this insane leap I do not know - she decided this woman had to be one of the Romanov family, so the story further descended into inanity and I gave up on it, having zero confidence that it would ever go anywhere interesting.

I wish the author all the best in her career, but I cannot in good faith commend this one based on the fifty percent of it I could stand to read. And BTW, the Romanovs are all accounted for: they all died in the end.

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I decided to dump this book out so I will read this in the future since I have wayyy too many books on Netgalley...

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Phoebe struggled with what we would now know as being bipolar. Rather than let her live at home and possibly disrupt her younger sister's opportunities to wed, her parents ship her off to Goldengrove Asylum. Charlotte can't bear the thought of her sister in that place, so she fakes a suicide attempt in order to be committed there as well. Then Charlotte begins plotting to find a way out of there for the both of them.

This book was both horrifying and enlightening. The lack of knowledge of mental illness back then, and the ways that they chose to treat it was nothing less than barbaric. By the time I finished the book I felt as if I knew each of those women personally. It was very well written and made you feel as if you were there watching everything unfold. I highly recommend this book!

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Loved it!! I couldn't turn away from this book! I love stories set in the late 1800s. Charlotte wants to recover her sister, Pheobe, from the insane asylum that their parents sent her to. Charlotte manages to figure out a way to get into the asylum then has to track down where her sister is located within it. Along the way to her finding her sister, there are several interesting key characters. Intriguing plot, well developed characters, and perfect ending! Thank you Netgalley for the advance copy!

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Wow! What a compelling read. Charlotte is a strong character and one to be admired. Her goal of saving her sister is noble. Her discoveries heartbreaking. I loved her reveries the most. They tied the past and present events together and helped quicken the passage of time. Overall, another strong historical fiction novel from Greer Macallister.

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Thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmard for a copy of Woman 99 by Greer Macallister.
3.5* A Historical Fiction tale of sisters Charlotte and Phoebe who must confront what defines madness head on. Phoebe is admitted to Goldengrove Asylum, a home for the insane but truth is disocvered as Charlotte becomes a patient in the effort to free her sister.
‘If God and Science allow, you will be cured’.
These words are spoken upon entry and immediately we are thrown into the horrors of the abuse at Goldengrove. Relationships with patients and staff are cultivated, everyone using each other as a means of survival. Charlotte and her fellow patients create an escape plan. Can Charlotte hold onto her own sanity long enough or will the confinement take its toll? Can Charlotte and Phoene leave madness behind or will they carry their scars with them forever?

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When Charlotte's sister is committed to an asylum, she feigns suicide in the hopes of getting her out. Charlotte is at first overwhelmed by life in the asylum, but quickly adjusts to its rhythms. Much to her surprise, she discovers that not all of the women inside are insane. The asylum's goal is to make money, not to help the inmates.

This was an interesting read. Charlotte and her fellow inmates were well developed characters. Her naiveté was astounding at times, but it felt right for the time period. Most of the guards and doctors seemed stereotypical and could have used a bit more development. Despite this criticism, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more from this author.

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There’s always been a morbid fascination in pop culture about mental health institutions and their beginnings as torture chambers and dirty prisons with poor conditions running under the guise of an “asylum.” In fact, the day after I started Woman 99, I watched The Nellie Bly Story on television. Maccallister’s protagonist, Charlotte (or Woman 99), is no stranger to these asylums and has in fact read the reporter Nellie Bly’s piece on her stay in an institution. But her interest is not one of entertainment, it is of a determination to save her sister, suffering from bipolar disorder nearly one hundred years before the coin was termed and locked in an asylum outside of San Francisco.

The book starts at a rapid pace. In a matter of a pages, we learn Charlotte is from a prominent San Francisco family, is engaged to be married, and has a sister who was recently committed to an asylum by her parents. She comes up with a bold plan in which she becomes committed herself and breaks her sister out of her prison. It felt strange and a bit disorienting for the main character to become committed so quickly. The reader just met her and already the plot has shot into what would usually be a climactic point.

I continued to feel unsettled as Charlotte navigates her way around the building and makes alliances with the other inmates. She proceeds to do execute more bold plans throughout the novel, and I’m left wondering, is it characteristic of this woman to be so brave? I don’t know her well enough to know, because honestly, in the few pages we have with this character before she is committed, she seems like a demure, devoted daughter. Holes in the writing, or a genius method of character development? I’m not sure. I’ll lean towards genius.

There are also a lot of far-fetched situations (in my opinion) during Charlotte’s stay. She slips out of several situations where I’m sure she’d be caught, and her starry-eyed hope that she will save her sister when she is trapped herself made my eyebrows raise with skepticism a number of times. I really cannot see how this could all end and package so neatly in real life as it did in the end. For some reason, I could not suspend my disbelief. But that is not to say that I did not enjoy the story, especially the ending (I truly liked the ending chapters and they were my favorite part), it was just not engrossing.

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I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I was going to, but it took me a little while to get there, probably about the half way point before it really took off. Charlotte throws herself off a pier to get herself committed to an asylum after her sister Phoebe (probably bi polar I from the way her symptoms are described in the book) has intervened to stop Charlotte's marriage to a man Charlotte doesn't love. Phoebe has embarrassed the family publicly multiple times and her mother finds sticking her in an asylum (a quite easing thing to do pre 1900) a convenient way to get rid of her so she can elevate their family's social status while erasing their debts with the other man's riches. Once committed, Charlotte finds all manner of atrocities taking place at this asylum and each hatched plan to try to locate her sister inside the warren of rooms leads to a new punishment or a new discovery of just how out of control things have gotten in the name of profit at Goldengrove. During her time there, she also discovers a shocking secret that could be the key to permanent freedom for both herself and her sister. In the flavor of Nellie Bly, this book really took off at the halfway point, and ended with a nicely tied off bow of happy endings for everyone. The first half kind of dragged and left me wondering if it was going to be worth the time invested, but it got better the more time I invested in it, and the characters really came into their own further into the book. Really well done.

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I LOVED THIS BOOK! Woman 99 by Greer Macallister just exceeded my expectations and I was totally hooked from the first page. Many times books will sag at some point but not this one, every chapter was riveting. The author is so talented, her wording and descriptions make me wish I was a better writer.

Scoot this novel to the top of your Must-Read list.

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When Charlotte Smith’s wealthy parents commit her beloved sister Phoebe to the infamous Goldengrove Asylum, Charlotte knows there’s more to the story than madness. She risks everything and follows her sister inside, surrendering her real identity as a privileged young lady of San Francisco society to become a nameless inmate, Woman 99.

The longer she stays, the more she realizes that many of the women of Goldengrove aren’t insane, merely inconvenient ― and that her search for the truth threatens to dig up secrets that some very powerful people would do anything to kep.

A historical thriller rich in detail, deception, and revelation, Woman 99 honors the fierce women of the past, born into a world that denied them power but underestimated their strength.

I knew very little about the mental health institutions of the 1800s so it was interesting to learn about them and how many women were committed and weren’t actually mentally ill. I enjoyed Charlotte’s personal transformation though she was always spunky, though not as much as her older sister. What she did to rescue Phoebe was brave and showed a true strength of character. After reading this book, I immediately downloaded another one of Greer Macallister’s novels.

Due out March 5 2019.

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Great book. Macallister wonderfully and respectfully touched upon a sensitive subject in a time where both lack of knowledge and medical assistance was prevalent. You were painted a clear picture of how appalling conditions and treatment were in those days. The backstories of a few of the patients was halting, the reasons for their confinement disgusting and heartbreaking.

I admired the loyalty and love of Phoebe and Charlotte, their bond unmeasurable. The sacrifices each sister was willing to make and made for the other was affecting. The frostiness between the girls and their parents, especially their mother added to the plot and authenticated the girls.

I liked the ending and I found the build up to the end suspenseful, especially with extracurricular characters involved.

Touching story of mental illness of days old, love, loyalty, courage and the intense bond of two differing sisters.

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This was such a captivating tale of women in an asylum in the late 1800s & the mistreatment that they all endured. WOW!! I was immediately invested in 9the characters. There was sadness, deceit, & at times abuse, BUT, there was so much strength, women supporting each other, love, passion, & last but not least, resolution. I LOVE Historical fiction, & this DID NOT dissapoint.

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I was pleasantly surprised by this book! While we’re off to a bit of a slow start, you’re immediately pulled in by Charlotte’s story. What did she do that had her sister sent to the asylum? Will she get her out in time? Who is she engaged to? What will happen if they do get out?

The plot was a page turner (rather than the pace, but what can you expect when most of a book takes place between four walls?), and I couldn’t wait to find out more about Charlotte and the unlikely friendships that she made along the way. There was no shocking depiction of what happened in asylums in that era, but it was still easy to imagine how difficult the women’s circumstances would have been. Despite - or because of - the conditions they are kept in, alliances form between the various women who live in the asylum, many placed there because they were inconvenient rather than insane. You will find yourself cheering for these women who want to be seen for who they are, and the end provides a pleasant and satisfying twist.

My most important indicator of a good book? Now that I’m done, I keep thinking about the girls and wondering how they’re doing, as if they were old friends. Perhaps we can hope for a sequel to see how the rest unfolds!

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As someone who regularly spends time with strangers, men and women of all ages, races, religions, and backgrounds, I gravitate towards novels that put people of all lifestyles together and let each of them shine. That's what I had hoped Greer Macallister's book would do; unfortunately, I think I've gotten spoiled by watching Orange is the New Black for as many seasons as it has been on. There are well-rounded characters on that show whose life before prison and in prison have been fully revealed to the audience. Watching each of their stories and the way they interact with one another is what makes the show so unique. While Woman 99 novel is not set in modern-day North America, Macallister only skims the surface when it comes to character development and left me wanting to know more about the characters and their motivation behind each of their choices. Charlotte "bravely" tries to rescue her sister from Goldengrove, the city's mental asylum, but finds herself and friendship there. It moves slowly, but does wrap up in a way that readers can appreciate.

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A Little Background
The real Nelly Bly is mentioned throughout this book, particularly as an inspiration to Charlotte. Bly was famous for her “stunt journalism” which included going undercover as a patient in order to investigate the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York in 1887. Bly’s initial desire was to find out for herself that “the most helpless of God’s creatures” were in fact being properly cared for in facilities of this type. What Bly discovers is that most of the women in the facility are not insane at all, but instead are just poor, indigent immigrants or women that are no longer wanted by their families for a variety of reasons. And the ones that did have mental illnesses were treated quite cruelly.

Doctors at the time assumed if you showed up on the doorstep of the asylum, for any reason, you were by definition insane. There was no diagnosis, no real examination. Insanity was assumed. Bly spent 10 days in the facility and her descriptions of the treatment of the women was appalling and shocking. She described everything from ice baths, sitting for hours on hard benches, spoiled and limited food, rough treatment, and brutal abuse including choking and beatings. After Bly’s exposé was published a grand jury launched an investigation into the conditions of the asylum; however, the asylum was given prior notice of the investigation and were able to prepare for the visit by officials. But they didn’t get their stories straight amongst themselves and the doctors and nurses not only contradicted Bly’s story, but also each other’s. In the end, some changes were made and more money was provided to improve conditions in the asylum. Examinations to determine real “insanity” were improved to ensure only the seriously ill were admitted instead of just “troublesome women” that families or society wanted to hide away.

Sadly, Bly’s exposé wasn’t successful as a remedy for the treatment of mental illness as a whole. It took many more decades before people with mental illnesses were treated as patients requiring medical care instead of inmates essentially locked up and experimented upon.

Woman 99
The author takes much from Nelly Bly’s experiences and develops it into a well-crafted story in Woman 99. Many descriptions of the treatment of women in the Goldengrove Progressive Home for the Curable Insane (the asylum in the novel) is taken straight from the experiences of Bly and is properly credited by the author in the Author’s Note.

Charlotte was an interesting character. She began as a privileged, protected, and naïve young lady with expectations of marrying well and turned into a courageous, strong woman willing to do anything to save her sister. I’m not sure Charlotte made very wise decisions regarding her plan to have herself committed. Unlike Bly, who had a definite escape from her situation, Charlotte just assumed folks would believe her when she finally revealed she was actually sane. But therein lies the crux of the story – her naïve assumption led her discover the fact that women didn’t have to be insane to be committed. Some just needed to be poor, inconvenient, or unwanted.

The story is ultimately one of courage, love, and strength. The ending was appropriate and satisfying.

I also particularly appreciated the introduction to Nelly Bly’s experience in the asylum since I’ve since read a lot about her specific observations (as is probably obvious with my history lesson above) since I finished Woman 99.

This is the first book I’ve read by Greer Macallister and I look forward to reading more of her work.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Sourcebooks Landmark for a free electronic ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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