Miram Toews does it again! Her novel about a group of mennonite women who come together to discuss being attacked at night by demons. They learn that these attacks are not being perpetrated by demons, but rather by men who are drugging them and raping them at night. This book was a powerful reminder that rape happens in all communities around the world. Toews said this was a fictionalized story based on a real event in a mennonite community in Bolivia.
The men go to town to bail out the rapists and while the men are gone the women have to make a decision to either stay or leave?
I loved this book. I thought it was so interesting to see what happens inside a rural secular society. And I think Miriam Toews is a beautiful and poignant writer. I like how the novel was written as a series of transcriptions from meetings amongst the women.
One caution - if you dislike reading writing that is in dialect you might not like this, but hopefully if this is the case, an audio version will be available.

The women in this book have been dealt a hand of crappy cards.
AND I MEAN *CRAPPY*!!!!!
The women need to talk.
With only 2 days free until the men in their community return - (its their intension to bring back the lovely rapists who have been in jail to give them back their RAPING-LEADERSHIP... cuz they are such nice wholesome decent men)...
Ha!!!!!
So.....while the men are away..., the women will play ( with one man allowed to play too).....
Eight women meet secretly- - ‘barn-style’ group-emergency-chat gathering.
What the f#~k solution can they agree upon that will protect them in the future?

A couple of the women are pregnant already - ( greetings, daddy?), and several daughters were also RAPED!!!!!
The word *violated* is just not BIG ENOUGH!!!

The year was 2011 when the two-day ‘talk-a-thon’ took place. The RAPES took place in the years 2005-2006. Over 100 women were RAPED!!!!

I wonder how many times I need to write the word RAPE - before the devastating REALITY syncs into every cell of our HEARING THIS? And what’s the plan to STOP IT?/!!!!!!

NOTE... ( this might sound trite), when talking about RAPE...( not intended), but ...
Geeeeee- we each know how hard it is to make changes in our OWN LIVES...
We are FAMILIAR with our crappy problems - to change them FOR THE BETTER - is one of the hardest things a human being does FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT.
People resist change. Change creates upset.... it’s frightening. THINKING about change - talking about it - is a start - but even for THE MOST INDEPENDENT POWERHOUSE women today - who believes in civil rights - justice - their life working - has STRUGGLES CHANGING......their environment- diet- and habits... etc.

Yet - these 8 women - whom have ONLY KNOWN this lifestyle - are expected to clap their hands over a solid solution???
Good luck!

These are RELIGIOUS women!!! Their thought reasoning is specific.
God - (their faith) - is a strong force. They haven’t been raised to think freely.

The women couldn’t read or write. ( of course). Welcome to their ‘religious ‘ community!!! (Wow- even in the year 2011)
That type of ‘organized-religion’ is one I wouldn’t wish for my worse enemy.
THIS IS NOT the 1600’s.
Who knew that in the years 2000+, illiterate was desired.... in ANY community -religious or otherwise!!!!!!
It’s Religious brainwash if the women felt ‘not reading’ was being faithful to their God.

*August Ebb* - was the only man - also a part of the 2-day ‘talk-a-thon’.
He was the ‘minutes-note-taking’-guy. The women trusted August to have their best interest at heart.
However.....
God- forbid - the eight women could trust their own voices ‘together’ without the need of a MAN for help.
Yep... fitting!!! It’s the community the Mennonite women knew!
Men were always granted more power than women...
So why would this ‘women’s talking’ gathering be any different.

See the problem about solution solving?
“What if the rapists are released on bail and return to the colony and find that there are no girls and women here, and begin to use these boys, the 13 and 14-year-olds, as targets for their attack?
One of the females ( Mejal) chimes in.
“Surely we can’t be afraid of boys this age? Why couldn’t they join us?

Ona ( another woman speaks):
“August, you’re the boys teacher. What is your feeling about this? Do your boys at this age pose a threat to our girls and women?
August must stop his transcribing in order to properly answer her question.
“I’m simply not capable of containing my happiness and surprise at being asked a question by Ona, formulating my answer, communicating it in Low German, and translating it instantly in my mind to English—while almost simultaneously writing in English translation on paper”.
August’s answer: Ha... teasing... don’t expect me to give you spoilers!
However - his answer ‘is’ in two-parts.

Yet....NO ANSWER is clear- cut- and dry when it comes to looking at religious beliefs - forgiveness - repenting - education -sinners - heaven - and hell.

The women in the community talked & talked... discussing/arguing/laughing at times/ debated.... ultimately about how to take their lives back after these horrific RAPES!!!

Based on a real-life event....
Dystopian Fiction written in a unique format...(very visual to imagine)
Miriam Toews took a god-awful terrifying- subject -made it personal -offering readers the possibility for our own added interactive discussions.
Perfect book club pick!

Thank You Bloomsbury Publishing, Netgalley, and Miriam Toews

Amazing premise, terrible execution. I could not finish it-- I got about 50% through and had to put it down because I just didn't want to spend my time on something I did not enjoy.

I wasn’t as in to this as I expected, though it delivered exactly what it promised, so I rounded up for that. The women talking ended up kind of going in circles quite a bit, and I was a little bored at parts. That said, given its based on true events, I think it’s an interesting story to get out there and I’m glad I read it.

[I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Release date: 4/2/19
Rating: 4/5 stars
Genre: Women's fiction/historical fiction
Features: Strong women, Mennonite faith, community tragedy, crimes against women
Quotes:

"But is forgiveness that it coerced true forgiveness? . . . And isn't the lie of pretending to forgive with words but not with one's heart a more grievous sin than to simply no forgive? Can't there be a category of forgiveness that is up to God alone . . . ?

"Peters said these men are evil, the perpetrators, but that's not true. It's the quest for power . . . that is responsible for these attacks."

"We are wasting time . . . by passing this burden, this sack of stones, from one to the next, by pushing our pain away. We mustn't do this . . . Let's absorb it, each of us . . . Let's inhale it, let's digest it, let's process it into fuel."


Wow. What a stellar, thought-provoking novel. I flew through the book in a few days, and am still mulling over what I read.

To give some background, this book is a fictionalized account based on actual events that happened in a Bolivian Mennonite community between 2005 and 2009. (Here is a link about the event: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-14688458) Over a hundred women were raped at night by men in their community after being drugged by belladonna, a chemical often used to anesthetize cows. Toews' story picks up after the attacks have happened and the men have left the community and gone to town for a few days to post bail for the attackers. In their absence, eight women have secretly met in a barn loft to discuss what they should: should they leave the community, or stay? One man is present to take meeting notes for the women.

This book had such strong and fascinating characters. Although the women in the community were unable to read and write (and only knew the Bible from what the men had taught them), they had such intellectual and thoughtful ways of discussing the tragedy that had happened and what to do about it. They had to wrestle with their beliefs as Mennonites and their personal goals of protecting themselves and their children. I had to wonder what I would do in their situation, when all I knew was my community, I couldn't read or write, I was discouraged to think for myself, and I had no idea what lay outside in the world. Would I decide to leave, for a hopefully better life for me and my children? Or would I stay, hoping things would change for the better or fearful of what would happen if I left?

This book is for anyone who enjoys reading about strong women and dealing with a community tragedy.

This novel reads like dystopian fiction but the real horror is that it’s based on true events that occurred just a decade ago.

As Toews explains in a note preceding the book, between 2005 and 2009 there was a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia in which the girls and women would wake up in the morning groggy, bruised and violated. The attacks were attributed to ghosts and demons, and the women were accused of lying or hysteria. As it turns out, eight men from the colony had been drugging and raping them.

This fictionalized account of these events follows the conversations between a group of women in the colony over the course of two days as they determine what to do with this knowledge: Should they remain in the colony, the only home they’ve ever known, and do nothing? Should they fight back? Or should they leave?

The narrative unravels like one of Plato’s dialogues, with the women using reason and discourse to address notions of faith, duty, justice, agency and righteousness. (If they stay, for example, that will inevitably compel them to violence, which will violate a core tenet of their pacifist faith, therefore the right choice is to leave.)

This is one of those novels that feels both timely and timeless. It’s thought-provoking and would make for good discussion at a book club.

I appreciated Toews’ clever approach to the narrative, as well as the philosophical discussions that took place between the women, but I struggled to connect with the story and the characters the way I would have liked to. I almost wish it had been written as a play or a dialogue instead of a novel, because most of the filler outside of the women talking failed to hold my attention.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Excellent novel about a scandal in a Mennonite community. Spellbinding story that parallels real life events in a compound near Bolivia.

I had to stop And think for a little more than a day on what my rating of this would be, had to separate my feelingsso I could judge what Toews has accomplished by writing this book. Quite frankly, this book made me so angry for the women in this Mennonite enclosed colony in Canada. Between 2005 and 2009, over 100 women and children were drugged and raped by male members of their sect. The youngest was three, a great part of what made me so angry. These women were expected to forgive their rapists and just carry on as if nothing had occurred. There is more to this, but that is all I'm saying about the men.

Toews, from a Mennonite background, much like these women, decided to give them the voice they probably did not actually have. Or maybe they did, I don't know that. So a group of women get together, to decide whether they are going to leave the colony or stay. The only man present, August, trusted, has is own back story, a very interesting one. It is while they talk that we learn of their lives in the colony, where they are so little valued that they are not taught to read or write, not allowed to express their likes or dislikes, completely powerless. Another huge source of my anger. In a short amount of pages, Toews accomplishes much, provides insights, and shows the remarkable courage of these women. Quite a revelation and accomplishment both.

Not a thrill a minute, there is some repetition as the women talk through their beliefs, their options and how their decisions will be accomplished. Yet, much is said, much is learned. Toews is an excellent author and one of my goals this year is to read the books by her that I have not yet read.

This is a link to an article I found on why Toews wrote this book. Quite informative.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/18/miriam-toews-interview-women-talking-mennonite

ARC from Netgalley.

In the loft of a barn, the women of a Mennonite community in Bolivia meet to talk about what they should do, how they could move forward to protect themselves and their daughters from more of the vicious rapes they have endured as they were drugged in the middle of the night. I would have found this hard to imagine if not for this opening sentence of a note by the author before the book begins:

“Between 2005 and 2009, in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia (named the Manitoba Colony, after the province in Canada from which the colonists had emigrated in the mid-1900’s), hundreds of girls and women would wake up in the morning feeling drowsy and in pain, their bodies bruised and bleeding, having been attacked in the night. The attacks were attributed to ghosts and demons. Some members of the community felt the women were being made to suffer by God or Satan as punishment for their sins; many accused the women of lying for attention or to cover up adultery; still others believed everything was the result of wild, female imagination.” (See the links to some news stories I have posted at the end.)

That this novel is based on a true story makes this such a horrific and powerful story, as we listen to the women talk to each other about their options and to the only man left at the colony, August, a teacher who takes minutes for them since these women have never been allowed to read or write. The rest of the men have gone to bail out the rapists who were taken into police custody for their safety, the safety of the men not the women. Meanwhile these women struggle with what to do to keep their daughters safe. The discussions are difficult, philosophical, religious, practical and heartbreaking as they recount their experiences. Should they do nothing? Should they stay and fight? Should they leave? The middle of the book felt a little slow, but then I thought that these discussions seemed realistic; it was not an easy decision to make. While this was their story, I was moved by August’s connection to them. This is one of those books that was so impactful and definitely a powerful telling of the awful things that happened to many of the women in the real sect. I woke up thinking about these women, wanting to know what happened after the ending. Kudos to Miriam Toews for not forgetting these women.


Thanks as always to Esil and Diane for our monthly read together. A terrific discussion!

I received an advanced copy of this book from Bloomsbury through NetGalley.

Articles on the events this was based on:

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2087711,00.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-14688458

https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/how-miriam-toews-gave-a-voice-to-the-rape-victims-of-the-horrific-bolivian-mennonite-atrocity

2.5 stars, probably. Somewhere between "liked" and "it was okay."

Because of the topic (sexual assault in a Mennonite community), this should be a tense read, but sadly I found it mostly dull. The fictional details of the crimes (and, of course, the real-life horrors this is based on) were terrifying and anger inducing, but the setting of the book (it all occurs in a barn in which a meeting is taking place, where the women in the community discuss what they should do) has no forward momentum; the plot literally goes nowhere.

I get that that's the point. What the women are discussing--religion and freedom and forgiveness and equality--is important, and the book gives you a lot to think about. It also forces readers to see something that we might see as black and white in a new light (the illiterate, religious women have a different take on the crime than I do, certainly). I liked the philosophical ideas, and I enjoyed the characters. But overall, I think I might have enjoyed seeing the aftermath of the women's decision more than their decision-making process.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

The premise of this book is engaging and timely. The execution of the content is just a bit too dark for me personally.

I wanted so badly to enjoy this book. However, it did not work for me. There was very little character development. Women Talking is told from the perspective of August, who was at one time excommunicated from the Menonnite community, who returned due to his love for Ona. Because August could read/write, he was asked to take down the minutes for the womens’ meetings when they discussed how they would proceed, separately from the men. The most character development I felt was when August told Ona why he was in prison and what it was like for him. This discussion was over very quickly. While I didn’t feel like there was character development on the individual level, there was some character development if you look at the Menonnite community as a whole, especially the women. However, I was still wanting more. I would have preferred if this story was told as a well-researched, in-depth nonfiction book rather than told from the minutes of the womens’ meetings.

This review will be posted on Amazon.com, Library Thing and on my personal webpage at https://sites.google.com/site/marysbookcorner/home.

Miriam Toews is a wonderful storyteller. She's written extensively of the Mennonite people in many of her novels and her slightly eccentric way of writing a story is unique and refreshing. this is the story of women who secretly meet to talk about whether they should stay in their community or go. It's set in current times but they live in a way where they are limited. Not many rights, women are to follow certain expectations and men take advantage of that. But it's not so easy to just leave. There are many things to deliberate and that is the book, the taking into account why they should stay or go. It's not only timely but also slightly humorous as is all her books. Dark comedy. just loved this!!

I expected a rather heavy mood to this book, based on the summary. The heaviness is matched up with some detached storytelling, done on purpose because it is all written from the point of view of someone they talked into taking notes about the women's meetings. If you like unusual narrators who are retelling the story, this is for you, but if you need your reading to follow the laws of grammar, you may have issues with this book.

Miriam Toews is a great writer, with first-hand knowledge of Mennonite life. This novel is based on actual rape and incest within remote Mennonite communities where girls and women are drugged unconscious and ravaged in the night by what they are told by their religious leaders, husbands, and fathers must be "ghosts" or "demons." Despite subsequent trials, publicity, arrests, and attempts at intervention, these "unwelcome visitors" as the rapists are euphemistically referred to by the elders have not fully been eradicated, and this knowledge makes reading Women Talking all the more chilling.

Martin is the sole male allowed within this circle of frightened females, plotting their escape. His soul is as tortured as theirs are, and he helps them as their scribe and procurer. Martin's unrequited love for Ona is as tragic as Toews's descriptions of frail little child victims afflicted with STDs, transgender identity, or Narfa (insanity). To go through all that while having a brother or father standing trial for something of which no one will speak must be so utterly enervating. This community is isolated linguistically (they speak a low German dialect), and the women are kept illiterate in this day and age which is so rage inducing I could hardly see straight to read this.

"In 2011, eight men belonging to the Manitoba Mennonite Colony were convicted of a series of sexual assaults committed from 2005 to 2009. Prior to the discovery, the rapes had been attributed to a ghost or demon. The victims were reported to be between the ages of 3 and 65. The offenders used a type of gas used by veterinarians to sedate animals during medical procedures. Despite long custodial sentences for the convicted men, an investigation in 2013 reported continuing cases of similar assaults."-Wikipedia

Women Talking is based on the above-mentioned rapes. The women in this book are contemplating their choices on how to deal with assaults:

1. Do Nothing
2. Stay and Fight
3. Leave

The Women secretly gather to discuss their choices and how to proceed. As none of them can read or write they ask a man, August, to take notes for them. As they share their feelings, thoughts, emotions, he writes them while also sharing bits of information himself to them. Naturally the women are angry, some are now pregnant as a result of the rapes, and some have daughters who have been attacked as well. Not only are they talking about what happened to them, they are talking about their religion, their faith, and the men in their community who are going to bail these men out. This is a very relevant book and it is frightening to think that this book is written about what really happened to a group of Mennonite Women. Attacks that happened in the night while the women were drugged. They wake up bruised, bleeding, sore, missing clothing, etc.

There is a short book which mainly takes places as the women sit and talk. As I mentioned, they talk about their faith, the role of forgiveness, what to do with anger, etc. I appreciated how they talked together and voiced their thoughts on their choices. Although they may disagree at times and even feel anger, they work things out and keep discussing their choices as they have a small window of time in which to decide.

So why three stars? Which, by the way, means I thought the book was good and I enjoyed it (in case you were wondering) At times, I felt the book dragged a little and I wanted to skim. Perhaps in the way this story was told, hindered my enjoyment a little. I think this book could have been told without the August's character. I think he was added to share some info and to show how Ona was showing him kindness by asking him to help. But for me personally, parts of his backstory got in the way. I wanted the entire book to be about the women and what happened to them. Do you need to know some information about Mennonites to enjoy this book? I don't think so but it may help give some readers a general understanding on their history, their close knit communities and their faith.

Overall, a good book that addresses horrific assaults and how women of faith came together to talk and make a decision together.



I received a copy of this book from Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

In 'Women Talking', eight Mennonite women conduct a secret meeting debating whether to leave to colony, stay and fight, or do nothing. Their decision is based off of the fact that the women and girls in the colony are not safe. The men have been repeatedly violating them every night, drugging and attacking them in their sleep. The women will do anything to protect each other and their daughters, but they are uneducated about basic things as well as the world around them. The men are off in the city, trying to raise bail money to get the rapists out and bring them home so the women only have days to decide. Will they stay in the colony and continue to put their children in harms way? Or will they leave everything they've ever known behind? 'Women Talking' was a haunting account that was based off of a true story. It is terrifying to think that this has happened and could be happening to women now. While I found the writing a bit difficult to get through, I found the subject matter to be powerful.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for the ARC.

Miriam Toews creates a fictional retelling of the rape of over 100 Mennonite women and young girls a community in Bolivia. These women have three choices
1. Stay & Fight
2. Do Nothing
3. Leave

I think the author does an incredible job of capturing the inner turmoil of the decisions these women would have to make. She gives a voice to the million thoughts they would have to wrestle through. The loss of community and how even the hard choice, the right choice might make them lose their families.

I do wish that the author would have gone into more detail about certain individuals and also felt some parts were repetitive and long. But I also recognize what the she was trying to convey.
I really enjoyed this book!

I will post this review on my social media review page closer to the date of publication.

Powerful and horrifying and massively trigger full. It's well done, I think, but I don't know much about the real events that inspired it. The little I do know makes me pretty sure this ending is not what really happened at all but i'm going to have to look it up. I liked the format and the characters of this story though, I think it turned well to Express the events but not fully have to describe all of the attacks. The small bits we did get were so awful that more of it would have quickly become desensitizing.