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A review by bookapotamus
Woman 99 by Greer Macallister
4.0
I'm going to start this right off by saying the chick in this book is cray-cray!! I don't care what the synopsis says about Charlotte voluntarily entering a loony bin solely to find here sister - just THAT alone, makes you batty in my book! I don't have a sister, but I have best friends I consider sisters... and nope!! Sorry guys. You're on your own. Enjoy the crazy pills cause my tush is sitting right here til you get out on your own!
So, that's where this story finds us - in the super creepy Goldengrove Asylum. I picture the Overlook Hotel from The Shining with it's very own Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and it is not anywhere I would ever voluntarily visit! And that is where Charlotte's sister Phoebe has been sent because she stood up to their parents to defend her sister. Charlotte feels like it's all her fault, and is determined to get her sister out and and back home where she belongs. So she fakes a bit of crazy and soon becomes 'Woman 99.'
I've read in other publications some of the insane things that women were committed for in the 19th Century - including: laziness, superstition, political excitement, masturbation and (gasp!) novel reading??? But Charlotte soon comes to find that a huge number of her roomies in the loony are, in fact, quite sane.
It's thriller at heart but the history is rich and vivid. Although it started a bit slow for me - the pace slowly grew and anticipation built at just the speed you'd want it to. I loved the vibrant descriptions of a less-than-vibrant setting and the suspense and mystery took me for a wild ride that twisted and turned with heartache and desperation. The treatment (or lack of) of these women was abhorrent and made me cringe - but the strength and resiliency was uplifting.
A really unique and thrilling trip into a time and place of irrational fears, harrowing madness, and the strength of the human spirit to deal with it all
So, that's where this story finds us - in the super creepy Goldengrove Asylum. I picture the Overlook Hotel from The Shining with it's very own Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and it is not anywhere I would ever voluntarily visit! And that is where Charlotte's sister Phoebe has been sent because she stood up to their parents to defend her sister. Charlotte feels like it's all her fault, and is determined to get her sister out and and back home where she belongs. So she fakes a bit of crazy and soon becomes 'Woman 99.'
I've read in other publications some of the insane things that women were committed for in the 19th Century - including: laziness, superstition, political excitement, masturbation and (gasp!) novel reading??? But Charlotte soon comes to find that a huge number of her roomies in the loony are, in fact, quite sane.
It's thriller at heart but the history is rich and vivid. Although it started a bit slow for me - the pace slowly grew and anticipation built at just the speed you'd want it to. I loved the vibrant descriptions of a less-than-vibrant setting and the suspense and mystery took me for a wild ride that twisted and turned with heartache and desperation. The treatment (or lack of) of these women was abhorrent and made me cringe - but the strength and resiliency was uplifting.
A really unique and thrilling trip into a time and place of irrational fears, harrowing madness, and the strength of the human spirit to deal with it all