I wanted so hard to love this book. And I wanted to much to finish it, but I did not. There are a lot of things to like about it, there are some very interesting concepts in it, they just seem to be handled clumsily, and take forever to get from here to there. At first I though it might be more of a YA book until reaching the almost sex scenes and  rape scenes, and did I mention societally endorsed forced prostitution? At least it seemed to me that emotionally it was written on a YA level.  Characters were written as pretty black or white., not much nuance.

I read it at a snail's pace thinking that eventually things would turn around and the pace would pick up, but it did not. So eventually I had to set it aside about two thirds of the way through, which is pretty far to go and then not finish it. At least for me. 

I wish the author well, I think there is a lot to say there, but the writing needs to be tightened up.

This is a heavy book with a theme of the oppression of women and includes descriptions of violence and abuse of women including violet r*pe. There is also violent death and just the casual oppression of women who are valued only for being able to produce heirs. 

The book begins with a woman casting a spell so that women can only get pregnant if they want to. Which causes wide spread chaos in a world where women are mainly seen as a way to have an heir. The spell also causes massive earthquakes which kill many people creating even more chaos and killing most of the ruling family of Rhozinolm leaving only Ellin, a woman, to take the throne. This is a feminist book at it's core with the message of equality and that those changes must be fought for. The level of oppression showcased in this book makes just reading it made me feel trapped and helpless as many of the women in the story are. 

I think this is a good book and I will be reading the sequels as I have grown attached to the characters. But anyone thinking about reading this book needs to know it is not an easy read and may be book some people need to avoid all together.

Review: 5 Stars

I always love a great epic fantasy novel and while The Women’s War looked like it might be intriguing I really didn’t expect much when I picked it up. I am so glad that I gave this one a shot because it really was just incredible. The Women’s War had me captivated from the very beginning and even though it was over 500 pages I didn’t want it to end! I am so invested in this world and all of these characters and I can’t believe that I just happened to stumble upon this book.

The world built in The Women’s War is so cool. The magic system is really unique and spells and potions are almost like chemistry experiments. Potions are made out of elements that can only be seen when someone’s mindseye is open. It feels a lot like science and requires some experimenting. The world is very complex and the story spans several different kingdoms all with their own complex politics. This book is full of political intrigue and there are several plot lines and points of view. The world is built slowly throughout the course of the novel so that the reader is never overwhelmed with information. It all comes together to make a world that feels incredibly real and one that I found myself wholly absorbed in.

The story is told in multiple places from multiple points of view and there are several plot lines. In a book of this scale you might think that you would lose track of who is who, but all of the characters are developed well and fully fleshed out. I grew really attached to all of the characters that it’s hard to choose a favorite. I loved watching Ellin grow throughout the novel the most though. Each one of the women were inspiring and courageous in their fights for justice and freedom in a world where women are second class citizens.

The plot was incredibly well crafted and was quite the emotional roller-coaster. I always worry when picking up a political fantasy that I might get bored, but all of the issues were so intriguing. It’s like reading the political issues that a women’s rights crusade causes and it was incredibly compelling to read. In books with multiple plot lines I typically enjoy one plot line more than the others, but that wasn’t the case with The Women’s War. Each plot line was so intriguing that I was never bored and they all came together for a phenomenal ending.

I have been addicted to this story and I’m so glad that the sequel is already published so that I can pick it up right away. I’m so happy that I stumbled upon this epic fantasy novel about a world where women fight against injustice and for freedom. If you’re looking for an epic fantasy novel that will completely absorb you and has a really unique magic system then I highly recommend you check out The Women’s War.

In this world, you can open your mind's eye and see magical particles. Some are 'masculine', some 'feminine', and some 'neutral'. Only men can learn magic and work it. No polite woman would open her mind's eye in public (or, anywhere, depending on the country). ...However, women who are already fallen, who are part of the Abbey—disgraced, disowned, divorced, whatever—can learn some 'soft' women's magic without coming under scrutiny. But no one would call them privileged in any way. Women are, as often throughout history and the world, fairly powerless. 

Until three women sacrifice their lives to cast a spell that can not be undone, one that gives women... additional powers, particularly over men who have wronged them. And it acts as an impetus for change.

Alys is the daughter of a king who divorced her mother and disowned the children in order to make a political marriage. The son of that marriage is now in line for the throne, and he doesn't need one more reason to hate his half-siblings. ...And it's Alys' mother who cast that particular spell. Alys is in a precarious position now, as a widow (with no husband to protect her) and mother of two children of her own. She seeks to learn magic and make a stand, but it might cost her more than she would have chosen to pay. 

What stood out to me in this book is the magic, which I really enjoyed. It's not explained much, which is probably a good thing, but it is visual and has room for fun things. 

I liked the main characters well enough but found most others shallow. And some of their decisions just happened too fast and I wasn't sure why... but oh well. The book isn't long enough to dive into a terrible amount of detail.

I normally avoid any book that says 'feminist' because I find them over-the-top or including a bunch of extra issues and people types and whatnot just for the heck of it. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It championed the empowerment of women in different situations, without trying to cover EVERYTHING. (I've seen several reviewers angry there weren't any gay women. There are like a handful of characters here, you aren't going to get everything in the world with them, and I really don't think their sexuality was an important part of the story.) 

Be warned there is some violence and rape but it doesn't go into too much detail thank goodness. There's a rather important battle which I was actually curious to see take place, and (sadly, for me) it's basically all glossed over. 

I hadn't realized it was the first book in the series so I was surprised by the ending. It came quickly—and abruptly. 
I would like to read book 2, and I hope it goes into the magic more, and that the characters actually get somewhere with their new crusades.

An interesting start to this adult high fantasy series. I will admit that the world-building kind of hit me like a ton of bricks and I do wish it was less info dumpy. But overall, i liked it.

This was a good, solid read.  I found the magic system fascinating. The use of male, female, and neuter elements was an intriguing way to mirror the deeply misogynistic society of the novel.  Alys is a sympathetic main character, and it was refreshing to have a female fantasy protagonist in middle age.  I also enjoyed seeing the development of her daughter, Janelle, and I was rooting for both of them by the end of the novel.  I had two main concerns with the novel, and these were the reasons I gave it 4 stars.  First, there were too many POV shifts.  I often found it jarring to be in another character's head, especially when that character was a minor character or someone we never see again.  Second, I did not appreciate that the book ended on a cliffhanger.  This is personal taste, and some readers won't mind that.  But I like trilogies that at least attempt to present the novels as standalone works.  Still, neither of these concerns prevented me from enjoying the novel and the world that Ms. Glass created.

I really enjoyed this book. 
This patriarchal world in which men control magic, at least in theory, experiences an upset when a spell is cast which makes women fully able to choose whether they want to conceive a child or not, and rape has potentially fatal consequences... for men. 
The world shows us a thought experiment about what would really happen if women were in charge of their own fertility, and what a threat that could be to men. As there are different political realms in the story, and women in different political and social stations, we see the perspective of a falling patriarchy from many different angles. 

The only problem? It ends on a serious emotional cliffhanger- so be prepared to pick up book 2!

An interesting feminist perspective given voice in this fantasy story. I wasn't sure what to expect, and was surprised that I not only liked the book, but really enjoyed parts, but felt it did drag a bit at times, and parts didn't hold my attention as well. Still, a powerful story, and great start to getting more perspective and narratives out there!

I really liked this book! At some points with some of the characters, there was a very Tudor-ish feel to them. The women suddenly have the power of choice after three women cast an unbreakable spell, and suddenly the women who have been treated as property for endless generations suddenly have all the power. This is not a "I know I have power now and will become super strong and take all of the people who have oppressed me down!" story. Instead, it is about women starting to gradually become aware of the fact that they can change how they are treated and desire to make changes around them and for other women in the world. I will keep this review short and sweet because, trust me, you just have to try it. I would have rated this book four stars if not for the "what in the Hades just happened and how is that okay?" kind of ending. It ends on a small cliffhanger and leaves room for the sequel. But, dang! Now I have to wait forever and a day to see some revenge! It is slow growth for the women, and we get the advantage of being in different character's heads. The women grow stronger, even the weakest among them, and learn how to find their own identities and strengths. Warning: you will not like being in the man's head. That is a horrible point of view, albeit necessary, and I hope he drops like a bag of rocks in the next book.

A feminist spin on the fantasy genre. What would happen if women could control their own bodies in a world were women are possessions and their only worth is having sons? This is the world created by Jenna Glass. Alys is the unwanted daughter of the current king. Her mother, now the abbess of the home for unwanted women who have been discarded from their homes and husbands and forced into prostitution - has created a spell that will allow women to control who they will have a child with. Once the spell is cast the race is on to counter the spell and change the balance of power back to what it was. In a neighboring kingdom, Ellin, now finds herself the only heir to throne after the death of all of her family. She must now navigate a world where she is expected to marry and then give the throne to her husband. Only she doesn't want to.

A slow moving book to start with it was initially hard to get into. It also deals with unpleasant situations in its treatment of women. However, it also shows how women start to gain control and turn their world around despite what is expected of them. Looking forward to the next book to see what happens next.

*Received via NetGalley for review*

This book has a wonderful premise: in a world where men have been in charge and women are their accessories/inferiors/possessions, what happens when this status quo is suddenly and shockingly reversed?

I enjoyed the various perspectives from women of all walks of life and the magic system, but it felt a little long and dragged in the middle. I didn't feel any passion from any of the women, even the ones treated terribly over and over again. Maybe they're so beaten down that they can't muster any, but the world has changed! This is your time! And it's definitely a strange oversight that there's no LGBT representation.

I think it was a unique fantasy that mixed feminism. I just found myself exceptionally bored going through it and I genuinely believe that it was a situation of me and not the book.

3.5 stars

You can read all of my reviews at https://www.NerdGirlLovesBooks.com.

This is a pretty good new fantasy series focused on what happens when women previously treated like chattel in a male dominated world are given the power to alter and improve their lives.

The story focuses on three women - a widowed woman with two children that had been disinherited by her king father, a young girl that is unexpectedly thrust upon the throne when a tragic accident kills the king and everyone ahead of her in the line of succession (she is expected to marry quickly and then surrender her throne to her husband), and lastly, an abbess of an abbey where nobel "unwanted" women are dumped after their husbands have divorced them, or their family has shunned them. They are forced to use their magic to create potions to make money for the crown, as well as work in the pavilion - the kingdom's version of a brothel.

After a powerful spell that struck the entire world has life-altering consequences for women, they find themselves with power that had long been denied them. When a caravan of exiled women find a new source of magic that only women can wield in a previously uninhabitable part of the desert, the exiled womens' power grows and they begin to form their own principality to govern themselves. This causes tension among the kingdoms, possibly leading to another war.

This is a pretty good book, but could have used a bit more editing. Clocking in at 560 pages, I feel like a good 200 pages could have been cut without affecting the story. The story moves pretty slow, and while there is some world building, there isn't nearly enough to justify the length of the book. There is no explanation as to why women have such a subservient role in society, or why women are so easily thrown away to the abbey, even young girls, with no recourse. While the reader is told that the kingdoms once had a devastating war, there is not much explanation as to why they had the war, what happened, or why tensions are still so high.

Overall, I liked the book and it's well written. I just think it was too long for what it was and could have been just as good as a shorter book.

Thanks for the digital copy, #NetGalley! I also read a finished copy & compared them. Review is of the final, print copy.

Every decision was thought out. Every decision was discussed. Even knowing what the world was like from having read advance reviews, though, I was delighted with the character development, and the building of all the components of the world & the magic. I enjoyed the set-up and the feel of the world, and the loopholes that men continued to try and use.

The ending irked me a little, even if it made sense within the context of the world building and the characters in play. I guess "saddened" would be more accurate.

The Women's War would be great for fan's of Naomi Alderman's "The Power". The plot revolves around a magic spell that gives women control over their own fertility, thus challenging the structure of their male dominated society. An epic feminist fantasy with well developed characters, good world building, and a compelling plot.

A promising story about issues about female control and dominance. Unfortunately, the plot was the only thing that kept my attention. I skimmed through the book after Part One knowing what was going to occur throughout the rest of the story. The ending wasn't necessary in my opinion. Since I technically read the book to the end, I won't give it a DNF, but that's the only good say in this review.

4.5 stars. Feminist high fantasy!
In my reviews of many other high fantasy novels, I've often expressed disappointment that in this day and age, rather than use the limitless possibilities of fantasy to imagine a world devoid of sexism from the get-go, so many authors instead still feel the need to depict deeply sexist societies in order to, hopefully, subvert them by presenting a woman or women whose exceptionalism is meant to imply that the underlying sexist oppression is bad. While this book might seem to fall into the same broad category, the difference is in how the author's intention is clearly to imply that all women are exceptional. The ridiculousness and arbitrariness of sexism are the entire point of the book, which is at its heart a classic "What if?" story. What if the women of a sexist, traditional high fantasy world, recognizable to all genre fans, suddenly controlled their own reproductive destiny?

From this "What if?" question comes a ton of impressive palace intrigue, international politicking, new magic within and expanding upon the extant magic system, new relationships between key players, new roles for players who would never before have been key, and all sorts of opportunities for this impressive cast of characters. As with many high fantasies, there are several different POV characters, but unusually, they are all female but one, and that one, who is more or less the book's Bad Guy, is given a certain amount of understanding.

I was very impressed with this and definitely plan to read the next one in the series.

So why not the full 5 stars? Well, I did round up, but I have two reasons for the missing 1/2 star. (And neither reason involves the triggery scenes, though I should mention that there are some really intense ones!) Firstly, I was bothered by the binary presentation of gender. There's male and female, masculine and feminine, for the magic system as well as for the characters, and it's all very heteronormative. A nod to blended gender via the creation of spells that use both, and an even subtler nod to the idea of individual people having personality qualities expressing both, don't cut it. Why not introduce the concept of the explicitly nonbinary or genderqueer? Why not have gay characters? I get that the book is more 'traditional' feminist than queer or intersectional, but it's missed opportunity. Secondly, the book could also have introduced the concept of non-monarchical governance. Even given the chance to found a new town, run by exiled women and called "Women's Well" for the well of magic present there, there's a quick turn towards proclaiming a sovereign queen. Wherefore monarchy when they could build something new?

I wonder if any of this will be addressed in Book 2. It's out in a couple of months, and I'm excited.

Intriguing premise and detailed fantasy world with a unique magical system. I see many poor reviews due to disturbing events and treatment of characters. Yes, there is severe misogyny, rape, suicide, murder and more. Yes, these things happen to women. For readers of epic fantasy with brutal political power plays, these triggers won’t be shocking. Same for anyone who reads and cares about the violence perpetrated against women today. For those who simply want a “Yay! Girl power!” sort of novel, move on. This looks to be the first in a series, so all these horrible actions by men against women, is at first the norm that leads to rebellion later.

Are there issues with the story? Yes. The most glaring is the omission of any queer or other diverse characters. That was really disappointing and frankly bewildering, considering this is an entire world with various kingdoms. No diverse characters...at all? It also would have been better had survival after rape and the subsequent trauma been explored at least a little. That was a big opportunity passed over, which in a feminist novel turns into a big glaring omission. However, there is enough promise that I would like to see where the author takes the story next. I hope some of the constructive criticism will be taken into account, though, and some of the more grievous issues fixed.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Made it 7% into <i>The Women's War</i> before calling it quits. It was the 10th mention of how tidal waves work in chapter three that did it for me. Hopefully an editor gets to this before it's officially published, someone who can remove the repetitive information and the repetitive word usage. There's tons of information dumps in the first three chapters too, not much is 'shown' rather than 'told'. It's too distracting and prevents me from getting into the story.

Also, writing what appears to be an emotional death scene in chapter two doesn't help. I don't know these characters and haven't formed any emotional bonds to them, so their deaths don't mean anything to me. 

The language is something more often found in young adult books, which didn't mesh with an adult protagonist with teenage children. The magic system appears interesting and will appeal to many fantasy lovers. This feels like a fantasy, alternative universe version of <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i> fan-fiction. I really wanted to like this. The description sounds like my jam .... but the execution feels like I'm being pandered to, which pisses me off. There's a market for this book, but unfortunately I'm not it.

I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. I heard about this book and some people said it was amazing and other did not think that much of it. I love the magic aspect especially that there is a new magic that only women can use. The women in this book were pushed to the point they knew that had to change things. It was a good journey to get to the end but it is only the first book in this series. I am assuming there is more to come for the characters.