Not what one thinks of when something is described as a "Western." Or rather a new kind of Western featuring a prison, sun-blasted and dried Arizona, a pandemic, empty Los Angeles filled with tents and compounds of the homeless, wide-open freeways and women having a showdown at a corner of two wide avenues downtown. California noir and the rage and violence of women released in all its malevolence. At the heart is the strange relationship that exists between inmates Diosmary Sandoval - Dios - and Florence "Florida" Baum in prison, and then after, when each is paroled early because of Covid. Dios wants Florida to admit that she's no better than anyone else, to admit who she actually is - why this is Dios' obsessive desire didn't make much sense to me, but I went with it. And running through this violent novel is Kace, another inmate, a long-timer, who hears the voices of the dead and functions as a kind of Greek Chorus, which I understood but also confused things. As the action between Dios and Florida moves towards a climax, into the maelstrom comes Lobos, a sharp female detective with her own submerged anger and violence, her own need to make things right. I'm a Pochoda fan and though this one didn't really work for me, I appreciate the authorial risks taken.

Thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus & Giroux - MCD for the ARC.

This was a powerful tale of marginalization and anger, focusing on the rage women feel when penned in by society and/or their relationships. I liked the book when it focused on Florida and Dios, the two prisoners who get released into society without really having any idea of how to adapt. It was interesting to see how they reacted, too, to the new social order imposed by early pandemic restrictions. I loved the book when it introduced Lobos, the female officer who is tasked with tracking down the prisoners. I loved how she has the veneer of civilization and polite restraint, but rage still seethes inside her. It was a powerful display of what society can do to all women, not just the ones cast aside in prison.

Sing Her Down is a compelling look at the dark side of bad women. Told from multiple viewpoints, the story takes the reader into a maximum-security prison for women where the worst of humanity is on display. We meet Kace, who speaks to the ghosts of the people killed by some of the women in the prison. We meet Dios, who inflicts unspeakable cruelty on other women in the prison. We meet Florida, who at first seems more of a victim than an aggressor. But we soon learn that she is not so innocent after all. Then there's the detective, Lobos, who with her partner, Easton, has to solve the murder of a man found dead on a bus.

All the characters have such a distinct voice, there is never a question about who has center stage.

Don’t come to this book expecting to like all the people in the story. There are only a few that are sympathetic; Lobos and Easton among them. While not perfect, the detectives have some redeeming qualities. They’re both dedicated to the job, and Easton cares about the welfare of his partner who has her own dark side.

There’s a definite character arc for Florida that brings her part of the story to a satisfactory conclusion. It's not a happy ending, but it is a satisfying one. The same is true for Dios.

Written with taught prose delivered in staccato beats at times, the narrative is gritty and honest about the darkness within us all. This isn't an easy book to read with a story that is dark and violent, but there's just something about it that draws the reader in. I had a hard time putting it down.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, MCD and NetGalley for the chance to read and review Sing Her Down
by Ivy Pochoda.

I hadn't read anything by Ivy Pochoda before so was going in blind. This is very good. A harsh tale set in Covid-America of criminals and psychopaths, cops and domestic abuse.

A poor little rich girl - Florida/Florence - finds herself in prison for a crime she assisted with and has been targeted for reasons she doesn't know by Dios.

The characters and their situations are established while they're still in prisons, they get an unexpected early release, and this story of violence and obsession, abuse and trauma takes off.

Out in the real world we encounter a traumatized detective who has her own obsessions to deal with.

So may obsessions! And in a good way.

Very tense and well written. The description of Covid-lockdown-era LA is very evocative and reads almost like science fiction (how soon we forget!). There's a real social consciousness angle as well in the descriptions of homelessness, inequality, misogyny, crime, etc.

Very well done. I'll be seeking out her other books now.

Intense and unsettling, this grit-filled story challenges common misconceptions about women, and what they are willing to do. What is left when the world chips away at what makes you, you? Here's a look at what's inside some of the unseen and unheard around us.

Sing Her Down is a fast-paced story about women and the choices they make. In the case of Florence (Florida) and Dios it leads to violence, prison and an interconnected story that, based on the path it took them both to get there, could only end in violence too. For Lobos, a member of LAPD, it’s questioning the choices she has made with her ex-husband and imagining being more willing to stand up for herself. The trio cross paths when Florida and Dios are granted early release in Arizona and Florida decides on a whim to go back home to LA. Obsessed with Florida, Dios follows. Murder and mayhem are left in their wake, drawing Lobos’ attention. What results is a cat and cat and mouse journey through the ghost town of LA, shuttered and abandoned during the pandemic. The settings and characters are gritty and visceral, made even more dramatically so by the time the book takes place. It is a great exploration of women, and how much they’re willing to take before they can’t take it anymore. It’s a great exploration in Florida’s case of how her childhood leads to the formation of her character. I wish Pochada had explored more why Dios becomes obsessed with Florida; what part of her sees a reflection of her own self. The language of the book is intense and moving and the story dynamic and different. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Florence is surprised when she and her cell mate are released from jail. She tries to start over, but her ex cellmate names dios has other ideas. I enjoyed this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and FSG for this ARC. It came highly praised by some of my favorite crime authors and Ivy Pochoda has been on my radar but I have not read anything by her yet. I really wanted to love this book, and there were parts that were so well done and tense and gripping. I just think I am still not totally ready for a early pandemic novel and that setting plays a critical part of this story. This book, while not my favorite, definitely proved to me Pochoda's talent and makes me want to go read her other work, but I don't think I'll be rereading it any time soon. If you're the kind of person who is ready to read a book about the emptying out of cities and the fear of spring 2020, than I think this book has all the elements to be a really great thriller.

Two women are granted early release from an Arizona prison. Florida aka Florence dreams of returning to California where her vintage sports car and the remnants of the bad decisions that led to her incarceration await. Dios, however, is hellbent on reminding Florida that she knows her secrets.

The story is told from the perspectives of Florida, Dios, fellow inmate Kace, and police detective Lobos. All four women are strong, interesting characters with their own demons. Kace, whose narrative acts as a modern Greek chorus, remains haunted by the woman she killed. In order to get her car, Florida must face the high society mother who set her on a course of destruction. To Dios, Florida is the manifestation of the oppression she experienced at the hands of her privileged classmates. Lobos is filled with shame for having to file a restraining order against her abusive ex-husband.

The early pandemic setting, which gives the story an apocalyptic feel, adds to Dios and Florida’s crimes as they violate lockdown mandates and their parole as they cross state lines.

I really liked the mythological references early in the book and was disappointed not to see them continue. I found Dios to be the most interesting character, yet her perspective was only provided twice, once in the first part and once in the second part. Her obsession with Florida promises and delivers a violent resolution, which is manifested in a mural that seems to move.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to MCD, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

I had no idea what to expect from this book, and even though it's really depressing, I was riveted the entire time! Prisoners Florida and Dios are on the run even though they've received early parole. But they are so used to prison life that surviving in the "real" world during the pandemic is so much more difficult than they anticipated. Former friends and accomplices are no longer there to be reached; they have nowhere to go and no one to count on so freedom is simply an illusion. Enter detective Lobos and new partner, Easton. Although they too are flawed characters, they've sworn to uphold the law and they do even when it's difficult. Clearly Pochoda is a master at this craft so I will read more of her!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

I was really intrigued by this book and wanted to read it when I heard it involved two ex-prisoners as female MCs. However, the execution fell flat for me. It didn’t keep me engaged throughout and there were so many parts that didn’t make sense. I had a hard time understanding the motivation of characters and why they were doing what they were doing. The subplots I wanted to love, but didn’t so they didn’t enhance the storyline for me either. I was hoping for a thrilling read, but that’s not what it was for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review.
I really wanted to understand the characters in this book but just couldn’t nor were they even likable. It took me 10 days to push through it. Wouldn’t recommend it but would definitely read another by this author since it was a first.

Feminist thriller with modern incarceration reform and social justice underlay set in manic and messy L. A. 4 women struggle with each other, their own limitations, and society- eventually revealing an interconnected mess between them all. Varying narrative voices- some more engaging than other- add necessary depth. Classic literature underlay gives this gritty story give quest narrative underpinnings. The early narration and dialogue felt slow and awkward at times. The extended descriptions of L.A. and the desert were my personal highlights.

The relationship of two women, with one peripheral voice, make up this gritty coarse noir thriller, situated in a California prison and the streets of Los Angeles. Florence “Florida” Baum and Diosmary “Dios” Sandoval were former cellmates while Kace provided a Greek chorus hearing the voices of the dead and provides background commentary and internal cogitations. Florida is a wealthy young woman who is jailed from being an accessory to a fire and murder. She doesn’t believe that she is as bad as everyone else in the prison, but Dios is out to prove the opposite. With overcrowded cells during the era of Covid, Florida and Dios are released early from their sentence. Despite the mandate to remain in a hotel with contact from their sponsor, both flee independent of one another but wind up on the same bus traveling to LA. A number of very disturbing incidents occur along the way which also coincide with a female police officer who is having domestic abuse issues with her separated husband. The odyssey here is what captivates the reader. The dialogue is sharp, brawny and robust-unlike anything I have read before. As the characters pommeled their way to what seemed to be an inevitable boom, I wanted to stay with that journey, being totally immersed in their thoughts and actions.
This is one violent, psychological drama that scorches the reader with fire.

Fantastic. At first I was a little wary of this. Moving murals? A Covid setting? Maybe too soon, maybe too much. But it all worked. This story is dark and dank. The characters are realistic and heart wrenching. Even the peripheral characters hit hard.

Set in the beginning of the Pandemic, two women prisoners incarcerated in Arizona are given early release. One is Diosmary Sandoval otherwise known as Dios. The other is Florida, a nickname for Florence. What Florida knows is this: she has to get away from Dios. So she skips town and the action begins there. Dios is hot on her trail leaving death and mayhem in her wake with the action heading toward Los Angeles and a showdown between the two and a pair of law officers headed by another strong woman named Lobos.
At the crux of it all is Dios' insistence that Florida didn't accidentally end up in a life of crime but rather that is who Florida is and Dios wants her to admit to it, that Florida is no better than the prisoners with whom she had been housed.
The insanity of it all is Dios is just nuts and Florida knows it and knows death is coming for her. The women are top billed in this book and are completely capable of taking down any man that either gets in their way or for the thrill. This is a great book for those that enjoy a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Ivy Pochoda definitely fits into the original voice category of authors. 4.25 stars

Wow I love Ivy Pochoda's writing and her new book Sing Her Down does not disappoint.
Taught and engaging this book was great. Fast paced and gritty this is the story of violent female prisoners and the unique relationships they share in prison and later when they get out.
Do not miss out on this INCREDIBLE unputdownable read.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my review.

Pochoda's latest novel is a modern day female western played out across the initial lockdown period in 2020. It is hallucinatory and dream-like in the beginning with the Covid-deserted streets and tent cities playing their part in making up the dreamscape of latter day Arizona and L.A.

Dios believes Florida is a much worse person than she lets on. That Florida harbours the same violent desires as her with our introduction to Dios being her stabbing a fellow inmate in the cheek with a fork and torqueing and shredding until she is dragged away. Due to the pandemic, early releases are being granted to inmates and Florida soon finds herself back in the real world, but imprisoned within a motel for two weeks of quarantine and seeks an impromptu escape back to her hometown.

This is a difficult one to fully explain without giving the whole game away, but in essence the women of the book are simultaneously prepetrators and victims. They have reacted or acted in crimes with or against men who themselves are committing transgressions, but are not punished as fully as the women of the novel, if at all.

This is a tremendous novel that puts a female spin on the type of books Cormac McCarthy has written about violence simply begetting more violence.

3.75 stars

Readers who are scratching their heads over the "No Country for Old Men meets Killing Eve," not to mention the idea that this is a women centered Western taking place in (mostly) modern day Los Angeles, will still be getting into some deep thinking when they complete this read, but that's for good reasons.

In the first minute of the novel (note that I listened to and highly recommend the audiobook - the narration is top notch), a character warns, "You won't *believe* what women can do," and that sentiment sets the scene for what is not only a story about what three specific women do but also what women in general can do - for good and for bad - and how women are constantly underestimated. Two of the three primary women characters participate in a near obsessive observation (for good reasons, in one case) of what the third woman does, and at times, readers wonder about the outcomes of this fascination. What we do not need to wonder about is whether the morbid curiosity is related to the observed character's sex; it is.

Pochoda - as best demonstrated in _These Women_ - expertly writes often shunned women characters who are overlooked and/or looked down upon by dominant groups, and the grittiness in both that novel and this recent effort is bound to result in some readers' discomfort. But that challenge to expectations will also be what other readers find most rewarding about this read. On a related note, Pochoda writes aspects of Los Angeles with haunting clarity. Readers who enjoy a novel set in this space (and especially those who are also lifelong or long-time locals) will also grasp the value of the city as a character of its own. Where else can dreams get made, go to die, and then live on in moving murals?

This is a more complicated read than Pochoda's earlier novels, but rather than being relieved to have finished it, I immediately started a second listen after the first round. I expect this one will be a bit polarizing for several reasons, but I enjoyed it, remain a fan of Pochoda's, and will recommend it mindfully.

When I was given the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book--tagged as a Western and a crime thriller--I scratched my head at the possibility and, intrigued, immediately accepted. I couldn't imagine the combination, but it certainly lived up to my expectations of a unique story.

Florida and Dios are inmates at an Arizona prison. Florida for a crime for which she claimed she was only an innocent victim of circumstance and Dios for what she claims was self-defense. Both are lying to themselves and others about their true natures--both are capable of dark, violent acts. Dios sees the truth and becomes obsessed with exposing Florida's lies. When both are paroled early because of COVID, Florida immediately jumps parol and heads to California in her bid to reclaim part of her old life. Dios begins stalking Florida in her misguided attempt to expose Florida's lies and reveal her true nature. They are on a collision course which doesn't bode well for either of them.

This is the first book by Ivy Pochoda I've read but based on my experience with Sing Her Down, it definitely won't be the last. I am now a fan of her gritty, atmospheric prose and her well-drawn characters. This is a complex story that empathetically constructs an environment in which the two main characters coexist and slowly reveals what each is truly capable of. Once started, it was hard to put this book down. It is, indeed, a thriller of a Western!