This was so soul-shakingly, heart-wrenchingly good that I had a book hangover for almost a week after I read it. It takes so many current issues and cuts to the heart of each with a scapel made of magical realism and fury at the state of our world.

There are so many quotable parts but my favourite is this:
“Just as the secrets of childhood were eclipsed by the gift of womanhood; of blood; the gift that keeps on taking. Women and blood have always been close. Wise blood; profane blood; forbidden blood; spilled blood. Blood that is at different times both primal and accusing; disgusting and exciting; provoking horror, shame and lust – and, sometimes, the promise of something else. Something stronger than womanhood. Something I believed was lost, until I felt it again today. Something almost like power.”

Bernie as a character is incredibly relatable, the rest of the characters peopling the novel are tangible living beings within the pages, and the story did what I hoped it would do but not in quite the way I expected. 

I laughed, I cried, I wanted to punch things, and once I’d got to the end I wanted to go and hug Joanne for putting my hopes and fears on the page along with her own.
 
It really is a book to which the term ‘timely’ genuinely applies and I recommend it to anyone who has felt overlooked and angry at the way the world is going.