I really enjoyed the storyline of this book. The characters were an eclectic mix, that kept me engagged. The book started out powerfully and kept me engaged throughout.

These Women by Ivy Pochoda is a riveting and sobering read that takes the reader into very dark, real, harrowing, and lonely corners of humanity.

This book alternates between 1999 and 2014 dealing specifically with the women that were either murdered or affected by the victims of a serial killer. The police have deemed these victims disposable as several were entwined into occupations and habits that were sometimes less then “G-rated” (and we can leave it at that). This book shows us that these women were still human beings, still had hopes, dreams, fears, goals, and should have been just as important as anyone else.

As the story continues, all of what we think are individual voices and vignettes, become braided into a common theme. Yes, there is suspense, a serial killer plot that is answered, but this book is so much more. It gives us a window into souls. Souls that are just as worthy and you and I, and yet when they were living, and dying, their voice was silenced. This book brings them to the surface as it should have been all along.

Gripping, tragic, and quite frankly, stunning. This is the first time I have read anything by this author, and a new fan has been made.

5/5


Thank you NetGalley and Ecco/HarperCollins Publishers for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.

Thank you for offering an early look at THESE WOMEN through the Bookperk newsletter! I sure could use the distraction of a good book right about now.

There is a serial killer in South L.A. murdering women who are part of the gritty street life.a mother grieves for her murdered daughter while seeking justice. A cop who can't let go of the connection to the marginalized victims. A Young artist admires the way of life and the stark, frightening photos from a victim's phone. A survivor of the attack with the same m.o. from years earlier trying to live again. Captures the struggle o f prostitutes, dancers, and others on the edges trying to take care of themselves and one another. Memorable characters and easy to imagine. Well done.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

I absolutely loved this! Each story was woven together beautifully and each story was as haunting as the rest. I learned so much about what it's like to be a sex worker - more than I ever imagined. Seeing these women's deaths shrugged off by so many people for so long infuriated me.

The twist was unexpected, which always makes me love a thriller/mystery even more.

I'll post a longer review on GoodReads, Amazon, as well as my blog once it's up and running.

Thanks to NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this. I will be posting a full review to Goodreads, Amazon, and Instagram.

This is a masterful, magnetic book revolving around five or six marginalized women in South Los Angeles. While a splendid literary novel of female empowerment and commentary there is a killing spree all around them - again. Back in the late 1990’s there as a series of unsolved and overlooked murders of sex workers. Now it seems it’s happening again to similar women in a cruel simulation. The novel is propelled by flashbacks to 1999 and the pictures are vivid and realistic. The women are the heart and soul of the neighborhood and the book makes us rage at their treatment and how little the feminist movement raised them until they raised themselves. Loved it and the women stay in your head and heart.

“These women” are neighborhood women dismissed by society. They are often considered annoying, unsightly, troublesome. When they have a legitimate complaint, or worse, are murdered, they are dismissed by the police as unimportant and investigations are brief. Fifteen years ago there was a series of brutal murders; the majority of victims worked in the sex industry. There were no arrests, some speculation and one strong suspicion. Now similar women are being murdered. Dorian, mother of Lecia, a past victim, tries hard to protect the women who come into her fish shop, especially Julianna, who babysat her daughter years before. She approaches a new detective to re-open her daughter’s case. Essie, the detective, burdened with personal problems, listens and her investigation links Dorian’s request with Feelie, seeking release from a stalker, and ironically the only survivor of the serial killer. When photos from the cell phone of a victim are used in an art exhibit, the circle closes and a new fear arises. Could the killer be one of them? This is my second Ivy Pochoda novel and once again I am not disappointed. The characters are believable: the twists are suspenseful and the message plausible.i look forward to her next work.

These Women by Ivy Pochoda is excellent social commentary wrapped in a serial killer mystery. The novel drips with sexual deviance, illicit drug use, and dark alleys, all set against the sunny backdrop of Southern California. "These Women" are the difficult women, the women society doesn't know how to make room for. They're mothers who have lost children too young and boil with the injustice of it. They're women whose options end at sex work and who class themselves by what type of sex work. They're women who will stop at nothing to seize control in a world that would see them subjugated.

Told from five perspectives, the events of the novel are set within a larger national #blacklivesmatter atmosphere and at the same time California is burning and then flooding. Pochoda weaves all of this into her story beautifully, making everything seem disturbingly real. The atmospheric gravity of the novel, combined with excellent writing, meant it was difficult for me to put this book down. The five women that tell this story are unique voices with common experiences; women who are afraid, women who are ignored, and women for whom societal justice has profited nothing.

This may be one of my favorite books this year!

This book was odd. It was a very interesting take on the "serial killer" book that kept the threat of a killer in the background which at times made the book even more dark and terrifying. In each part we follow a different woman who is affected by the killer in some way or another. And each woman's story felt like falling deeper and deeper into madness. It was truly an excellent and well crafted book.

The writing was entrancing and engaging and made the book hard to set aside for any period longer than a few minutes. There was something that felt uncomfortable about reading this book and the sense of voyeurism that was brought to life made the book that much better. The writing was exquisite and strange in equal measure. In all honesty I am not sure if I am allowed to like this book which makes this a very unique and wonderful reading experience. Ivy Pochoda is a formidable writer that seems to take the edges of society, the fringes of what is right and proper and extracts the darkness from there and allows it to flourish. Finishing the book is like trying to climb up from a hole pushing through cobwebs with only the hope of light somewhere guiding you.

Each woman brought another unique thing to the page, a different sense of loss or fear or pain and anger that kept each part feeling fresh. And each woman felt more crazy than the last, in the sense that you could feel them losing their grip on reality as the chapter went and each one felt like a deeper trip into this madness which I loved. I loved that each part of the book and each woman brought us closer and closer to wrapping up who the serial killer is. I also really appreciated the soft edges each woman had, Dorian's love of cooking and feeding her neighborhood, Julianna's love of finding the beauty in all things, Marella's desperate desire to be understood. It brought a different layer to each of them that helped to flesh them out.

This book was far from what I was expecting it to be and although I wasn't sure as I was reading if I was really going to like it or not the more I read and the more I couldn't tear myself away the more I enjoyed it. This is a solid 4 stars for me and one I will be recommending. It's like reading a mind bending dream. I am here for it.

Pochoda covers a lot of familiar territory in this story of women in a gentrifying neighborhood in South Los Angeles that may or may not be plagued by a serial killer. Her characters are broadly drawn and conventional within the genre - the angry wife with a secret; the mother who lost a child and is trying to take care of others as a consequence, whether or not they want to be cared for by her; the sex worker who takes pictures of her life that show the seamy underbelly with an artistic clarity that another artist wishes she could copy or capture. I enjoyed reading this, especially the woman detective with the troubled past because I am a known sucker for this type of character, but the tune was a little too familiar and prosaic.

In 1999, thirteen females in the West Adams section of South Central Los Angeles were brutally murdered. Most of the victims were sex workers, the one exception being a teenage babysitter named Lecia, who was the killer's last victim. The perpetrator wasn't caught and some people think the cops didn't try too hard because the women were 'throwaways.'

Fifteen years later, in 2014, prostitutes in West Adams are being murdered again, in the same manner as before. The cops resist the idea that a serial killer is active again and they CERTAINLY don't want the new deaths connected to those in 1999.

The story, which focuses on six women in West Adams, is set in 2014, with flashbacks to 1999.

- Feelia was a streetwalker in 1999, but gave up the life after surviving a deadly attack. The incident seems to have disturbed Feelia's mind because she insists a white woman started stalking her right after the assault, and is still haunting her fifteen years later. Feelia shrieks and carries on whenever she 'sees' the woman, and shouts at people who try to shut her up.

- Dorian is the mother of Lecia, the last girl killed in 1999. Dorian's spent years haunting the police station, insisting her daughter wasn't a prostitute, and exhorting them to find the killer. The grieving mother owns a fried fish shop in West Adams and feeds local streetwalkers who drop in. Now Dorian has been finding dead birds outside her restaurant, and thinks someone is trying to frighten her.

- Julianna was the child being babysat by Lecia on the night the teen was slain. Now Julianna is grown up, a strip club waitress who provides 'extra services' in the back. Julianna drinks and uses drugs to get through the day, and fears she'll never be able to get out of the debasing lifestyle. Julianna's hobby is photography, and she constantly snaps pictures of her prostitute friends, documenting the bleakness of their lives.

- Anneke is a married El Salvadoran woman who immigrated to Los Angeles with her husband and young daughter. The family is solidly middle class and Anneke wants nothing to do with (what she sees as) undesirable elements in the neighborhood. Anneke is obsessed with keeping her home and life in perfect order, and she sent her daughter Marella away to school to keep her safe.

- Marella is Anneke's daughter, now in her twenties and an art school graduate. Marella does performance art as well as modern installations with moving images. Marella is living with her parents in West Adams, but has spent so much time away that she's almost a stranger to the area. Marella has bad memories of her life in El Salvador, and her art often depicts women as victims of sexual and physical violence.

- Esmerelda (Essie) Perry is a police detective who moved from homicide to vice after an unfortunate incident. The male cops in Perry's station steer the 'nuisance complaints' her way, so she gets to hear Feelia's allegations of a stalker and Dorian's report about dead birds. As Perry is looking into these complaints she makes discoveries about the serial killer.

The book doesn't focus on the identity of the serial killer, though that is revealed. The novel is more a character study than a murder mystery and Pochoda's portrayal of the six main characters, and the people around them, is vivid and perceptive - so we get a feel for the factors that shaped their lives.

We also get a peek at the ambiance of West Adams: the clubs; the streets; the bridges; the former mansions split into apartments; the nosy neighbors; the commercial establishments; the mixture of people; and so on.

Pochoda is a master storyteller and this is an excellent book. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Ivy Pochoda), and the publisher (HarperCollins Publishers/Ecco) for a copy of the book.

4.5 Stars

”It’s all about how we do in the dark.
You know about that? You know anything about that?
You know the streets? Do you? You’re really not going to say anything?”

This story begins in the past, in 1999, the year the first bodies of these women took place, and travels back and forth between 1999 and 2014, when there seems to be reason to believe it might be happening again. The police had categorized all of the women in 1999 as prostitutes, but Dorian knows her daughter, the 13th of the 13 murders in 1999, was just babysitting, and yet the police can’t be bothered to check the facts.

Dorian owns a small fish shack, a place where the local teen girls come to hang out, flaunting their youthful bodies, rolling up the skirts of their uniforms, and Dorian can’t help but remember the days her Lecia was that age, and alive.

We are led through the stories of each woman, their lives and the sorrows that permeate their lives; their dreams, as well as the nightmares they’ve endured, while their omnipresent gritty world shows us the realities of the lives of these women – both the ones who have lived through enormous sorrow, and those who have perished in the dark and dangerous corners of this Los Angeles neighborhood.
Enter Essie Perry, a female cop who Dorian is sent to speak to about the dead hummingbirds being left at her home and work – mainly because the male cops don’t want to deal with this woman, with her dead daughter or these dead birds. But Perry actually finds it unlikely that these two things are completely unrelated. But is she right?

Dorian is only one of the narrators in this story, Essie is another, and then there is Feelia, the only one to survive the 1999 attacks, a woman who still has the scars from it. Julianna, one of the neighborhood girls, who seems to be pulled into the life of a “working girl.” There is also a mother and daughter, Marella and Anneke. Mareiella, an aspiring artist, Anneke a woman who seems to feel like this country will never be home to her, and so keeps to herself, trying to keep herself, her family, her home and life in order.

This story unravels slowly, and while we hear the stories of these women, and they share their individual stories, their stories blend into the shared story shared as though it is this neighborhood that is looking over them all – and sharing their dreams for the future and their sorrows from the past.

After reading Pochoda’s Visitation Street, which I loved, and Wonder Valley, which I enjoyed, I was looking forward to reading this - despite the fact that I’m not typically drawn to “mysteries” or “thrillers,” but then again Pochoda’s stories tend to avoid the gory and scarier details of most thrillers. Instead, she tends to share these stories from an omniscient viewpoint, and unravels the mystery slowly, through some stunning writing, which I loved.


Pub Date: 19 May 2020

Many thanks for the ARC provided by HarperCollins Publishers / Ecco

I discovered Ivy when I bought a copy of Wonder Valley. Ivy is an excellent writer and I think These Women would make a great Netflix series.

What a terrific book. So many threads so skillfully woven together, such strong voices. Review forthcoming in Reviewing the Evidence but meanwhile - wow. Certainly will be on my top ten for 2020, and the year has barely started.

This novel has a lot of potential but I was never able to feel emotionally involved with the characters. There was no sense of immediacy or intimacy with any of them. I was interested in 'the life' of addicts, street walkers, strippers, dancers, and their family members but the depth of characterization was never deep enough to thoroughly draw me in.

The background of Los Angeles and its ambiance was the strongest characterization in the book. I got a real feeling for the history of the neighborhood and the connections between its inhabitants as well as their struggles. The sense of foreboding because of the dangers that the young women faced was ever present but too much in the undeveloped. A serial killer!! Police letting the investigation slide!! I wanted more on this.

Wow, what a book! Completely relevant, but written in a manner that is riveting and engaging! While it does have a theme that really is important in today’s society, it’s written in a manner that does not feel like it’s lecturing you, but instead showing why this topic is needed to be addressed and changed! Well written, character development is absolutely astounding, and chilling! I think this book not only provided me with my much needed chills, thrills, and shocks, it also worked down into my soul and showed me some horrible truths about what women endure! I highly, highly recommend to all, especially those who really don’t understand what women might face in the world!
I will make sure to buzz this up on all the different platforms!

Once in a while, if you are lucky, a novel comes along that leaves you breathless and stunned. Pochoda's book threw me down a whirlpool sucking me under . Using descriptive street language ,the author explores the life of five different women who live in southwestern LA, a section known as "the corner." These very different women tell their individual stories in very explicit visual language but have the commonality of living through past and current violence . They are judged by police and the world by the color of their skin and /or by their occupation. When two girls are murdered in their neighborhood, their past surpassed pain dissolves and their connection to a serial killer surfaces. There is peril, brutality,grittiness and power in their words that felt so pictorial and real. I was living in their neighborhood;I felt immersed in their feelings. When the book ended, after I put everything aside for the whole evening, I just sat still, amazed, bereft and finally privileged that Pochoda offered an experience like no other. If I could rate this to the googolplex power I would. Admittedly, if you don't like audacious fierce novels, you might pause before reading this book. But for the others, run, run, run.

WOW. This book. Right now. So relevant & important for so many reasons. "These women" refers to: sex-workers, but also focuses on the mother of a murder victim, a police officer, a performance artist, a dancer, and also (importantly) a wife who knows more than she wants to reveal. So seventeen of the victims are killed at two time points by what we think may be the same man. Don't let the serial killer story distract you though because the story is ultimately a portrait of violence against women and the advocates who fight for them-each in their own way. This book is not pretty or neat at all. The characters are not likable- sort of the way I felt when I read The Mars Room- which was also fantastic- but it definitely dives into many unpleasantries that society has a tendency to ignore, such as the fact that all victims were People of Color and seemed to be of a lower social-economic status. Imagine if these crimes were happening to educated women? White women? Beautiful thin women? Society has a way of picking and choosing who "asks for it" and who doesn't and this book calls out every ounce of that bullshit. I think it's going to be a huge hit of 2020. I am so stoked I had a chance to check it out early and I will be talking about it to everyone! Thanks so much for this ARC!

“These women on the corner … These women in the club … These women who won’t stop asking questions … These women who got what they deserved …”

In her new novel, Pochoda shines a spotlight on a career not often set as a primary focus in modern fiction: prostitution. “These women” who make up her story are, of course, prostitutes, but also include the mother of a murder victim, a police officer, a performance artist, a dancer, and wife who knows more than she lets on. The reader walks through the lives of each woman, learning about her heartaches, struggles, ambitions, etc., but the story does not truly gain momentum until the lives of these women are connected as a result of several local brutal murders.

Pochoda deserves a kudos digging in a world many writers ignore. Although we are not blind to the violence these women suffer and the danger many of them face, the author dumps us into those situations, forcing us to look at it in the face.

However, the book is not one I would recommend. The characters were not written in a way that made me like them or even feel sorry for them, including the survivor (who felt like a stereotype), the mother of the murder victim, or the police officer (who spent entirely too much time referencing her height). I felt an overwhelming sense of heartbreak for women trapped in this violent world, but not the characters described here.

I have no doubt Pochoda is a talented writer and look forwarded to reading one of her earlier works, but this one simply was not a winner for me.