Reviews with content warning for Blood - Beware the Woman

Excellent follow-up (not sequel) to The Turnout, which was the first of her books that I read myself, Megan Abbott has a very keen sense for portraying women, misogyny and heteropatriarchy that I find fascinating, and a tight grip on the thriller's narrative structure that makes for a very compelling read.

Also those women were lesbians and I know it and I'm right.

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kaczorlantz's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The book felt very atmospheric. I don’t fully understand the weird hold the father has on the son, but maybe I’m not supposed to? And I wanted more of a conclusive ending. In all, it was alright.

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aileron's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

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dfrancis's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No

3.5

I enjoyed the book but I feel like the ending left a little to be desired. The book really plays on fears about bodily autonomy, misogyny, and reproductive justice, which all feels very relevant. It definitely had the creeping suspense of a gothic but I feel like the ending happened too quickly and was just a little lackluster and unclear. I’ve seen some people say the writing felt disjointed and didn’t flow well but i didn’t find that to be an issue, but I was listening to the audiobook and maybe it comes off better through that. Overall, decent read but not my fave

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debussy's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Beware the Woman is a bit of a departure for Megan Abbott. The terrible, wonderfully written characters are still there, and her masterful ability to write around solid details is also very much present, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions when it comes to character backstory and motivation. It starts out rather slow, with unwitting Jacy on a trip to visit her new father-in-law, but as with Abbott books, there is a slow twist even at the beginning that things are not going to go as planned.

This book has a bit more of a flair for horror than Abbott's previous books. Jacy is at first charmed by Doctor Ash, her husband's father. But changes lurk: her husband, Jed, starts to act more distant, less himself, more influenced in a way by his surroundings. He tells her a dark story about his father that doesn't seem to make any sense to Jacy, who sees Doctor Ash as an affable sort happy to grill and hike and show her old photos. But then the housekeeper doesn't act quite right, throwing Jacy off. When Jacy wakes up covered in blood, she's whisked away to Doctor Ash's friend's medical practice, where his friend examines Jacy and discovers she has placenta previa.

Cue the horror. From here, Jacy's body is no longer her own, but even that is a slowly tightening screw. The men huddle, determining what to do with her, while the housekeeper lurks nearby, always watching and never quite giving up what she's thinking. It starts to churn together into a story of paranoia, both medical and patriarchal. Doctor Ash and Jed just want Jacy to be safe--to think about her unborn child, to be calm and rational, to do what they say above all. Jacy wants to get the hell out, but at every turn she's threatened or scolded or had all of her means stripped away. She has no internet, no wi-fi, no reliable land line after a while. They're off in the woods, far from help. Jacy has to help herself.

This is a story of women battling back--taking revenge, taking what's theirs, owning themselves, making decisions for their own bodies when the men around them would like to be calling all the shots. It is an addictive ride, and quite a fast one when the plot starts to spin and spin, upping the tension and paranoia and slowly peeling back all of Jacy's ability to trust in other people to make the right decisions for her.

My one quibble is the housekeeper. She speaks in riddles and I was not entirely sure she needed to be so vague without explanation. There is also an extremely abrupt ending, which works for a novel that leans toward horror, and of course I can infer what happens, but I just wish these aspects of the novel had been a little cleaner.

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