Westward Women

What an unexpected surprise.

Following three women’s point of view through a strange epidemic that only affects women between the ages of 16-40 during the 70’s.

Evie is the disgraced journalist attempting to redeem herself by getting to the base of exactly how and why these infected women head west.

Aimee is the concerned best friend of one of the westward women, going above and beyond to bring her friend Ginny home.

Trish is infected and slowly losing her mind, like most of these women.

A man called the Piper who herds the infected, to somewhat their destination.

At first I thought this was a nod to women being sick of only fulfilling the typical care taker roles in society, but as you get past 50% everything changes.

Medical experts and behavioral scientists are trying to cure this strange phenomenon, but can only go so far.

The beginning was a tad bit slow to start, but it got momentum after the first few chapters.
Some moments felt like a fever dream.
Although every now and then one of the characters would just go on and on away from the plot. It annoyed me to a point.

I had a good time with this one for the most part.



Thank you to Saint Martins Press and NetGalley for the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

An impressive debut, but ultimately not my cup of tea. I probably should’ve known — I haven’t clicked with Emma Cline’s The Guest or The Girls, and this had a similar moody, ambiguous tone, and while I don't recall the year being given, it definitely felt psychedelic, like it took place in the 60's or 70's. The cover and the comparison to Emily St. John Mandel were what ultimately lured me in.

Westward Women is a slow, creeping journey toward an uncertain, unsettling future. The prose is solid, and the characters are compelling, but it all felt like more setup than payoff. There’s this sense that the author is trying to say something important, but either the message got lost in the haze or I just wasn’t tuned in enough to catch it.

I understand the intentional vagueness — that open-ended, fill-in-the-blanks style that invites the reader to interpret meaning — but for me, it just didn’t provide quite enough substance to hold my attention.

That said, I suspect this book will be very buzzy, widely praised by critics and fans of literary fiction. So I’ll likely be in the minority here. If you enjoy slow burns and don’t mind a little thematic ambiguity, it might work better for you.

Thank you NetGalley for the read of Western Women by Alice Martin.
It starts with an itch. Women from 15 - 35 have become infected and their desire is to scratch and move west.
This story is about three women.
Aimee will do anything to find her best friend and help her. She also dreams of sick women & wants to help them.
Teeny who has gotten on the bus with Piper. Piper said he would take the girls west.
Eve who is a journalists and wants a good story. She picks up an infected woman and they start their travels west as well.
The story was good and entertaining.

Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for historical fiction or maybe I’m a little weary of always reading about how women have had to be endlessly strong in the face of suffering. This book had rich historical detail and compelling female voices. It highlighted the power of sisterhood and the risks women have historically taken for freedom, love, and autonomy. It wasn’t quite right for me, but definitely worth a read if you’re in the right headspace.

I am so impressed this is a debut novel, and look forward to whatever Alice Martin comes up with next. The book follows Aimee (written in third person), Eve (third person), and Teenie (first person) on their westward journeys. Additionally, intermittent second person chapters break up the story and end up connecting later, which I found really interesting and well executed.

This novel is not “hard” science fiction, as the mechanics for the sickness affecting only women and its cure are never fully developed, so if you are not the type to suspend belief for the sake of the story, this is not the novel for you. The book takes place in the real world of the 70s. Women, and not the greater society, are on the brink of collapse. And as the infection spreads to affect hundreds of thousands, society reacts to these restless women by arresting and sedating them.

Westward Women does not deal with the everyday or overt oppression of women front and center, but rather alludes to it through interactions, memories, and news broadcasts. Instead, the book dives into how women have shaped themselves because of and despite familiar and societal pressure and expectations and explores their interpersonal relationships with strangers, family, and other westward women. The characters are impressively complicated and messy. Not everyone gets sick, and not everyone who is sick wants to be cured.

Overall, I found Westward Women to be a captivating and unique novel. I did not expect the horror/thriller aspects when starting, but I think they helped keep the story engaging when it otherwise might have dragged a bit with constant interpersonal relations. I struggled with the conclusion, but in the end I think it makes sense with the story being told.

I received an eARC from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley.

“The woman scoffed at her silence. ‘As if you’re the only person who itches,’ she said before she walked away. ‘The rest of us have just learned to live with it.’”

“They didn’t scratch to get it out. They didn’t necessarily want it out at all.”

Not a terrible debut novel but I found it hard to immerse myself in the scri/gothic nature of this story. I did however like that each chapter had its own unique story and story line. It made for an interesting read.

I liked this debut novel, which, although set in the 1970s, feels very timely. It's kind of a sci-fi/gothic horror/dystopian novel about a mysterious infection that is affecting women and driving them westward. The narrative focuses on three main characters: Eve, a journalist exploring the stories of infected women; Aimee, who's searching for her infected friend; and the infected teenager Teenie who's been riding with a creepy man called The Piper. Something about the story didn't grab me super strongly, though I thought it was an interesting premise and well written.
I'd suggest for fans of Quan Barry's We Ride Upon Sticks, Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea, and obviously The Handmaid's Tale.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book early. The opinion in this review is my own.

It starts with an itch that can't be satisfied. Then the infected women go west and most are never seen again. It's spreading like a disease to young women. This story follows the POVs of women who are personally impacted by the infection in various ways.

This is quite the journey and such a unique premise. It brings up so many conversations about being female and having autonomy. This was so well written especially for a debut novel. The characters were fleshed out and they all had great backstories. You become attached to these women and invested in their wellbeing.

The ending fell a bit flat for me because some of the loose ends were tied together a little too conveniently. I still enjoyed this book very much and I highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

4/5⭐️. This book is set in a dystopian 1970s era where a disease gives women the “itch” to move Westward. Hence, the title of the book. There are three perspectives that it follows. Aimee, the good girl that does everything right but makes a choice that goes against her perceived personality. Eve, a former disgraced reporter who is trying to earn her reputation back. And Teenie, the afflicted girl with her own trauma she’s trying to deal with.

The story hinges on the characters as it is character driven. There were some POVs I preferred (Eve and Aimee) over others (Teenie). However, this may change for each reader. The author does a good job formulating the aspirations and traits of each character. They do feel like real people without feeling like caricatures.

The dystopian world-building aspect was interesting to me and made me want to learn more about having other POV’s. I understand why the author wanted to contain the story to revolve around specific perspectives as it can become too big. I ended up having some questions about the disease itself.

The book could’ve been 5 stars if the writing was less superfluous. There were times that words were said to fill a word count or pad the book. This could’ve been offset by including more plot points as it does drag in the middle. Everything comes together at the end which may seem divisive to some readers. This may be why it’s rated lower.

This is a novel for people who enjoy character-driven stories over plot. Being a leader of a book club, I found myself wanting to ask members about their thoughts of the book. Cmon Reese and Jenna, asking you to pick this as your book club books. Overall, it was an interesting read. It is not perfect but I did enjoy it as a debut novel.

The mystery of what the disease affecting women is and how/why it drives them west consistently held my attention. There was something there, though not fully formed as a totally cogent idea, about women's desperation to be heard, to be seen. The three characters kind of blended together for me in voice/emotions, the ending felt underwhelming, and the thread with The Piper, a man who helps drive the women west, was just a bit discordant from the rest of the narrative for me. The elements of journalism and museum aided in developing the larger themes of remembrance and documentation. Promising writing but not a totally satisfying narrative arc or fully formed point of view.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for access to an eArc of this book.

got an ARC through netgalley to review.

I've been in an ARC slump but really enjoyed this one! Very readable, very creative, a few good twists. Some really nice turns of phrase. My only nit is that the ending fell a little flat for me, otherwise this would be 5 stars. A solid "read this" recommendation from me.

The book has a really interesting premise and plot. The multi-pov format (n particular the 2nd person sections) was well executed. The path the characters were going on felt a little odd at times since Seattle is in the West but also pretty far north but that didn't take me out of the book that much.

The writing of the infection as both physical but also psychological and also metaphorical was intriguing. The characters feel distinct in their goals and situations which helped keep the details of the story straight in my mind. The plot does hinge on a super unlikely coincidence towards the end which I wasn't the biggest fan of but the ending itself was satisfying.

I received an arc of this novel through netgalley and the publisher, for which I am grateful. The premise of this book sucked me in right away. Sick women, driven westward by some disease inside of themselves? Sign me up, please! However, I found this novel difficult to get through and somehow got bored with it almost immediately. Better in theory than in print, I suppose. Perhaps it was the writing that made it fall flat for me, but at only about 20 percent in, I was ready to be done. I do think that if more time had been spent on the piper’s character, descriptions of his misdeeds, more backstory about the woman who drove him to do the things he did, I might’ve been more interested. I did appreciate the fluctuating points of view, and did find myself attached to some of the women. All in all, I don’t retreat having read this, but it just didn’t speak to me the way I hoped it would.

2 stars. This was certainly... okay.

This book felt a lot more style over substance. The general concept is thrilling— a mysterious disease that nobody understands is making young women travel westward compulsively— but felt lackluster in practice. There were very little stakes, which made it hard for me to stay engaged, and the surface level feminist thought peppered in throughout really didn't do it for me (but to be fair I'm a stickler for feminist theory lol).

This book also falls into a common pitfall for books with multiple POVs, in that some are simply more interesting than others. I really liked Eve! I connected a lot with her internal monologue. Then, on the flip side, there's Aimee's chapters which I couldn't help but eye roll at every time she woe-is-me'd.

I really liked the prose, and Martin has a very pretty writing style, but I think my main issue is that this book lacked a sense of urgency and the perfectly tied up ending was disappointing. When I reread the short description as being for "fans of Emily St. John Mandel" I could only ruefully chuckle at myself because I didn't like Station Eleven either, for a lot of the same reasons Westward Women fell flat for me.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

The concept of Westward Women is really compelling and drew me in immediately. What a freaky, unsettling setup. Though I found it difficult to connect with the characters (I found their voices a bit too similar) I appreciated the takes on how their very different lives led them all ultimately to their westwardness. It was a difficult read that's taken me nearly two weeks - it is unsettling, and since I read mostly on my lunch breaks during the week, I had to go veryyyy slowly! And take breaks. But I'm glad I read it, and I would recommend to Margaret Atwood fans (though maybe in the The Heart Goes Last way rather than The Handmaid's Tale?) and speculative alternate history readers.

Westward Women is a genre-blending novel set in the 1970s, where a mysterious illness causes young women to experience intense itching, memory loss, and an irresistible urge to travel west, often with deadly consequences. The story follows three women—Aimee, Eve, and Teenie—each navigating this strange phenomenon and intersecting with a mysterious figure known as The Piper. While praised for its evocative writing, atmospheric setting, and exploration of feminist themes, some readers found the pacing slow and the plot’s resolution less satisfying. Overall, it’s an ambitious debut that combines historical fiction, thriller, and speculative elements to examine restlessness, identity, and female empowerment.

This was a great read! I did feel as though I didn't have enough time to fully commit to all 3 characters the story takes a perspective from. By the time we've reached the finale, the impact didn't hit me as much as I'd hoped. I will definitely recommend to friends and family!

I really enjoyed this book! The writer had a way of really creating a scene and sucking you into the story. I found it hard to put this book down. I do feel like there was maybe a bit too much exposition. It took a long time to get to the turning point of the thing that would make all of these women’s paths cross. And I didn’t know until about halfway through the book that Aimee would be the one driving the action. I wished there had been maybe more time spent with Aimee and building that suspense. When the character of the Piper was first introduced I wondered to myself if this was going to be like one of the creepiest retellings of the Pied Piper I would ever read, but in the end it felt like more of an homage to that tale.

The premise of this novel is intriguing: young women start itching, lose their memory, and feel an inexplicable pull to go West. They are often never heard from again.

The execution fell flat.

We follow three women. Aimee is going out in search of her best friend. Eve is trying to follow the infected to write the story of a lifetime. And Teenie is infected, deteriorating before our eyes. All of their stories come together via interactions with a mysterious man, The Piper, who is picking up infected women and driving them Westward.

The pacing is slow, to the point where after about 1/3 of the book it became arduous and hard to continue. The writing is eloquent and pretty, but the plot is lacking momentum. The entire time Aimee is reminding us that women have around 14 days to survive once taken ill, but this doesn't pan out in the rest of the novel and the urgency in her finding her best friend lacks. Some of the actions she takes are incongruent with her being in some huge hurry to find her friend.

The twist at the end is ridiculous. The way all of the plot lines wrap up into perfect little bows and the coincidences are just too much to be believable.

While this novel clearly has things to say about feminism and patriarchy and the political climate, particularly with it being set in the 70s, for me it failed to deliver.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing this e-ARC via NetGalley.

This book reminded me, just a bit, of "When Women Were Dragons." That same sort of inexplicable transformation of women as they come into power and do the thing that is right for them. I enjoyed the twists in the story and, honestly, didn't see a couple of them coming. Definitely worth checking out.