Granted, she doesn’t remember anything about it, since she was only two when her family took up residence on the island.
Caitlyn is one of the only people to have once lived in the Wastelands. She longs for a different life, but doubts things will ever be different for her and those around her. Her mother loathes her and her father loves her way too much. Fifteen-year-old Amanda is newly married and pregnant with her first child. She eats almost nothing and constantly challenges the authority of her father and the other men. Seventeen-year-old Janey is a rebel, determined to do everything in her power to stave off her Fruition. She sneaks glimpses of them, spurred on by her burning curiosity about life off the island. Vanessa is the thirteen-year-old daughter of the Wanderer in charge of the island’s books. Melamed weaves a compelling and disturbing story, told from the perspectives of four of the island’s young women. There are a few books, but they’re not available for most people to read, there is no electricity or technology and knowledge is said to come from a religious text known as ‘Our Book’ which is believed to have been written by the ancestors of the current group of island residents. The Wanderers go out in search of artefacts from the Wasteland, but little of use is ever recovered. No one, save a select group of men known as Wanderers, ever leaves the island. Each couple is only allowed two children, so the young women pray to give birth to sons rather than daughters who will live lives of horrible degradation. Once a girl enters puberty, or ‘Fruition’, her sole purpose is to bear children.
The one exception to this rule is childbirth. Women are second-class citizens, their every thought, word, and action controlled by men and aren’t even allowed to meet in groups without a man present as a chaperone. They form a fanatical religious group that revolves around ancestor worship. When society as we know it fails and most of the world disappears into a burning wasteland, ten men and their families flee to a desert island. As someone who has always been fascinated by cults, it was a natural choice for me to review. Centering around a cult with some fascinating, if problematic, views about women and the societal roles they should occupy, it’s a powerful story of courage, filled with identifiable characters who face unimaginable hardships. Dystopian novels are a dime a dozen these days, but Jennie Melamed’s début novel, Gather the Daughters, is anything but typical.
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