Then all the men that we meet, or who are alluded to, are vile. Many hate each other they would betray each other. The familiar trope of woman-on-woman competition is prevalent. The longer we go, along with the characters, in living in this prison, the more the friction between power and degradation builds. We see similar adjectives used throughout: barefoot, muddy, dirty, dog-like, dead, stupid, bloody, greasy, stiff, staring. The hostile landscape-appearing to be some kind of abandoned sheep station-is exacerbated by Woods’ astute use of description. It’s an overtly feminist narrative, and a scintillating commentary on misogyny that’s been likened to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. We’re never, however, explicitly privy to the details of the girls’ past scandals. Woods’ narrative also plays on recent news stories-take the sports team sex scandal, or the rising entertainment star being sexually exploited and vilified. It’s loosely based on a true story from 50 years ago, when a group of girls were transported from a child-welfare institution, Parramatta Girls Home, to a rural location near the small New South Wales town, Hay, where they were treated like criminals. Who had put this on her?”Ĭharlotte Woods’ fifth novel is grotesque and thought provoking in equal parts, constantly making you want to put it down and keep reading simultaneously. There was the coarse unfamiliar fabric of a nightdress on her skin. “She got out of the bed and felt gritty boards beneath her feet. We are first introduced to one of the protagonists, Yolanda, who wakes in a drug-induced haze.
These young women, targeted for an assortment of media-inflated sex scandals, have been kidnapped and taken to a remote location, where they will be terrorised by two blundering, menacing, and ham-handed guards. Ten women wake up they don’t know where they are.
The beginning of this book is terrifying.
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