Reviews

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle

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jillianreadsalot's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“On Tuesday, Adelaide Henry had been a farmer. On Wednesday, she became a fugitive.”

Because I had the privilege of reading this book early, I had the pleasure of going into the story blind. So I’ll try to show the same courtesy and tell you how amazing this book is without giving too much of the plot away.
•
The year is 1914 and Adelaide Henry is a 31 year old Black woman who’s left her family farm in California to homestead in Montana. The book opens with a shocking scene of destruction and our heroine is running from all she knows to escape her past. With her, she keeps an enormous trunk that she must guard at all times, because if opened, folks around her seem to go missing.
•
Lone Women exceeded so many of my expectations! This was a book I hated putting down and was excited to pick back up after a long work day. It’s an intersection of various genres—horror, historical fiction, western—and is an excellent display of author Victor Lavalle’s story building talent. In fact, this might be my new favorite of his (January is apparently the month of 5 star reads for me!) The book moves quickly, the story is experienced from multiple perspectives as we’re given a compelling cast of characters, and there are plenty of plot twists! If you’re not convinced on this yet, pick this book up simply to root for a Black woman seeking redemption and determined to survive the harsh northwestern wilderness of early twentieth century America.

Be on the lookout for this beauty in March!

lauramcsherry's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

Lone Women

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was so different from my normal reads, I’m not sure what to think. Adelaide leaves her home to start a new life in Montana with a mysterious trunk. A she navigates life there, we meet a diverse cast of lovable characters.

I think the characters were my favorite part of this. I’m not big into the horror parts and that ended up filling most of the book. Short and different from my usual!

Thanks to @netgalley for this ARC.

feministbookclub's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious

3.75

colleen's review

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This was such an interesting take on an old western horror. The pacing of the story is slow with a pervasive eeriness that starts to haunt the reader with pops of intense anxiety. We follow Adelaide Henry, a Black woman who moves to Montana from California after an incident. I appreciated how the author was able to make the reader also feel the burdens and responsibilities that Adelaide is forced to carry with her. This book is a lot of character work. That's not to say that there isn't a plot; there is. The story is not focused on it though. The plot serves to enhance the analysis of people and society. The author is able to show a distinct, underlying problem with society, mainly that those in power will always create a community through othering those that are different from them. Overall, I liked the eeriness and the character work. There were a few things that got a little bit derailed in the plot towards the end that I didn't really like, a scene that was kind of fade to black that I wish we could have seen, and a couple of characters that were a part of the story just didn't really show up in the end and left me wondering. The epilogue was a nice touch and I liked that we were able to learn a bit more about what happened after the events of this story.

Overall I would highly recommend this story for fans of slow horror who don't mind a bit of gore.

Trigger/content warnings: racism, sexism, animal death, bodily injury, gore, blood, transphobia, homophobia, death. There could be more, but this is all I can remember right now.

*Thank you to One World/Penguin Random House for the eARC in exchange for review. All thoughts are my own!*
**Thank you to Ariel for buddy reading with meeee**

eepetersen18's review

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

likecymbeline's review

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4.0

A handsome horror story set in historical Montana, with LaValle's immense writing gifts at the forefront. The images are stark and memorable, the characters wonderfully complicated, and the monster is the heart of the story in more ways than one. I appreciate when a monster isn't fully described, when it takes shape like a charcoal drawing, too vast to be caught in more than glimpses. Claws, yes there are claws. And wings, there, a flash of wings. But you can't see it all at once, it's in too much movement.

The side characters are realistic with stories of their own, whether we'd cast them as friends or villains alike. They are proud, they are frightened, they are doing what they have to do. The ending reflects current trends in horror writing: marginalized characters who opt out of mainstream society because they've had enough of trying to "live up" to the status quo. Who realise that this liberty they fought for was just a simulacrum of freedom, was a game that has been designed for them to never win. It's a little obvious and pat, but you are also relieved that Adelaide has finally found a life of her own.

yetanothersusan's review

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

At this point, Victor LaValle is a must read author for me. After loving The Changeling, I picked this one up without even reading the synopsis. I'm not a fan of westerns. I'm not super big on the paranormal. But his writing, the characters he creates, how he takes true history (did you know there were communities of Black farmers in early California? did you know there were single women homesteaders in Montana?) and gently, slowly twists it to create an amazing world for the reader draws me in! It was like a lullaby and a fairy tale all at the same time. But, of course like those Grimm tales, there is the dark side and this one came out in the form of powerful feminism! And Adelaide wasn't the only character with a secret. The messages in this story, both subtle and in your face, made for an impactful read! Plan your time accordingly or you will be "just one more chapter"ing yourself into a night of little sleep!

Thanks to Random House - One World for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.