Friday Fun - The Friday 56 and First Lines for April 14, 2023

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I'm back, after taking a couple weeks break from Friday Fun. This week I'm featuring a book that I'm close to finished by now. It's not an easy read, in that it's heartbreaking and horrifying to think of the abuse the women suffered (because it's based on real events), but the narrative is wryly humorous and gentle, and told in a unique voice.

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Ona continues: Our children will be safe.

Greta has closed her eyes. She repeats the word "collectively," as though it is the name of a new vegetable she is unfamiliar with.

Mariche can contain herself no longer. She accuses Ona of being a dreamer.

~from page 56 of Women Talking by Miriam Toews

The basis of the Oscar-winning film from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand.

One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.

While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women―all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in―have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they've ever known or should they dare to escape?

Based on real events and told through the "minutes" of the women's all-female symposium, Toews's masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your e-reader.

*Find a snippet, short and sweet.

*Post it, and share in the Linky.

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My name is August Epp―irrelevant for all purposes, other than that I've been appointed the minute-taker for the women's meetings because the women are illiterate and unable to do it themselves.

~From the beginning of Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader.

*It's Book Beginnings on Fridays! Time to gather with our fellow book lovers and share the opening sentence (or so) of the books we are reading this week. Or share from a book that is on your mind right now -- whatever catches your fancy.

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First Line Fridays is hosted at Reading is My SuperPower

*Share the first line or two of the book closest to you, then visit other FLF participants.

*Please keep posts family friendly or clean reads.

*Link back to Reading is My SuperPower within your post or grab a button.

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And here is the weekly bookish question in the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.  

This Week's Question: What is your go-to website to check out book reviews?

My Answer: I tend to look at reviews on Amazon more frequently, but it's the reviews and rating on Goodreads that I rely on. Often the Goodreads reviews are more thorough and I feel more confident that they are honest, especially when it comes to any negative aspects of a book. It helps that I recognize the handles of some reviewers, and that I'm more likely to see a review of another author on Goodreads too.

Book Blogger Hop

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