A review by pestowitch
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed

4.0

Incredibly disturbing and oddly compelling. Gather The Daughters details the experiences of young teen girls living on an isolated island populated by a misogynistic society, bordering on cult levels. The author is a psychiatric nurse with experience in helping abused children, and it shows. The abuse the girls suffer at the hands of their families and society is awful, and scarily all too close to some people’s realities. Whilst haunting, the harrowing is never explicitly shown beyond some vague descriptions and implications. The book itself has gained some comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale due to similar themes, but I think GTD works well as an additional commentary from the perspective of young girls. The writing flowed well, although had a few overly flowery metaphors here and there which irritated me. My only problem with the book is that it ended so abruptly. I could have read about the girls fat behind the end of the story and I certainly hope the author will be publishing a sequel.