“Whatever’s happened to you can either make you beautiful, or it will ruin you forever. You decide”

3.5 stars rounded up for Chelsea Bieker’s debut novel “Godshot”. It was slow-moving, but profoundly deep, stunning and at times, heavy.

Picture this; our main character, Lacey May, and a church cult, living in a dry, desert wasteland which was once home to a thriving community and fruitful raisin farms. In their time of drought and desperation, they have turned to Pastor Vern, their creepy cult leader, to help restore the rains to their land. Lacey May endures increasingly horrific acts at the hands of various church members in the name of God. Fed up and alone, she sets out on a quest to find her alcoholic mother. But the truths she discovers about her family, her town and their beloved Pastor are far more devastating than she can imagine.

For a thought-provoking story that deals with themes of motherhood, loss, faith, and resilience... pick up Godshot. I do want to say this book for mature audiences only and while it is tough to handle at parts, I think that makes it’s messages all the more worthwhile.

I also want to include trigger warnings here for: rape, child abuse and endangerment and alcoholism.

Perfect in every way. So glad I got a chance to read this. I would give this a 5/5 stars on the good reads scale most definitely.

I found this to be an interesting read. It was, however, a rather slow read and the running of words together I found distracting. It is a book that I would encourage others to read.

“Whatever’s happened to you can either make you beautiful, or it will ruin you forever. You decide.”

I have so many feelings about this book. I'll start by saying that the writing is phenomenal. Such beautiful sentences and such a pleasure to read them. It reminded me of White Oleander many different times. Really excellent imagery in her writing. The atmosphere of the draught was so stifling, so real that I felt parched as I read the story.

“I don’t think they were her ideas. I think they were yours, and then they were the beers’ and then they were that man’s from the phone. I think she learned to ignore her own ideas a long time ago.”

I also loved the character development. I think the characters were mostly well developed, especially Lacey May and her mom. Vern was less so but we don't really see much of him directly in the story so it would have been hard to do that. I loved Daisy and her daughter. There was so much texture in the characters.

"It was the same way I had. Her belief had accumulated like a tumbleweed and it became too hard to go back once she’d come so far, sacrificed so much."

But here's the thing: this story was so sad. So so so over the top terrible. Just one awful thing after another. I am not saying this kind of stuff doesn't happen. Of course it does. It just was so much that it almost felt manipulative. Horrible things happening to women all throughout this book. So you have to be ready for that. It just felt like I was watching a roadside accident and I am not one of those people who finds that fascinating, I find it devastating.

I'd give this a 3.5 but the writing was so amazing that I felt a strong need to round up.

With gratitude to netgalley and Catapult for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow – this was incredibly well-written, well-constructed, and a crucially important read, but also an incredibly dark and draining one. I didn't enjoy it, per se, but I'm glad I read it nonetheless and am floored by Bieker's talent; I can't wait to read whatever she writes next as she's one of the most promising new authorial voices I've read in years.

Literary fiction a girl searching for her mother who left her a search in the California desert survival a cult .A saga that drew me ion an author Inwill follow,#netgalley#counterpointpres.

I haven’t read a book I liked as much as Godshot in a long time. Chelsea Bieker’s debut novel lays bare the desperation of a once-thriving California valley town in the time of climate change, where people would do anything - and believe anything - it takes to be delivered from the drought. Enter Pastor Verne, a charismatic leader who presides over the Gifts of the Spirit congregation, promising that if they stick to their assignments and don’t question his divinity, he will perform a miracle and bring back the rain. Lacy Mae is a 14 year old girl whose alcoholic mother ran off with an unknown man and left her in Peaches with her grandmother Cherry and the rest of Verne’s fervent believers. As things begin to break down and Lacey starts to question her faith in Verne, she reckons with what it means to have faith, to be a woman, to be a mother and a part of a family. I don’t want to spoil the novel at all but I will say it is a modern masterpiece of feminist liberation that is in turns deeply troubling and heartbreaking and also empowering and joyful. I’ve already told everyone who will listen that they should preorder this for next April; it’s going to be one of the best books of 2020. One final note - Bieker’s writing is tight and the story strong, but I did feel the flash-forward final chapter tied things up in too neat a bundle that felt a little trite (I think the ending would have been more compelling without it). Thanks Netgalley and Catapult for giving me the opportunity to read this one early! I can’t wait to see the reactions people have to it when it hits the world next spring.

An un-put-downable saga of the raw strength it takes to live in the Californian desert while trying to find the mother that left you in the hands of your grandmother and the local cult.
Edgy, harsh, but still beautiful. Godshot is a must read!

Probably unpopular opinion here... I wasn't a huge fan of this book. The writing is incredible, and it reminded me so much of White Oleander (which when I was younger was one of my favourite books). However, I found this book to be really slow, I struggled to stay interested while reading it and if a book isn't a page-turner for me then I often have a hard time finishing it. I can see this book doing really well in 2020, unfortunately it just wasn't for me. Thank you to Netgalley and Catapult for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. And finally, I love that cover.

I hope this isn't the first Netgalley review for this book. Judging by the Goodreads rating, I'm firmly in the minority opinion here. The book is well written, and I liked the flawed and well-rounded characters, but I'm to the point where I cringe when I see a book described as "feminist" simply because of how often that translates to "terrible things happen to women, and they might have a few victories and eventually get to show their strength, but mostly it's just a series of bad things happening to them over and over." I'm clearly in the minority here based on the other reviews, but it's like the Lifetime Movie paradox. Lifetime was "television for women," but you could almost guarantee that any time you turned it on, you'd be seeing something awful happening to a woman. I'm burnt out on reading books like that.