Lone Women

A Novel

English language

Published Dec. 21, 2023 by Random House Publishing Group.

ISBN:
978-0-525-51208-0
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4 stars (2 reviews)

Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an “absorbing, powerful” (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling.

“Propulsive . . . LaValle combines chills with deep insights into our country’s divides.”—Los Angeles Times

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2023: The New York Times, Time, Oprah Daily, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Essence, Salon, Vulture, Reader’s Digest, The Root, LitHub, Paste, PopSugar, Chicago Review of Books, BookPage, Book Riot, Tordotcom, Crime Reads, Kirkus Reviews

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California …

1 edition

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3 stars

Sometimes I'm initially lukewarm about a book, but ultimately over time I forget the details and instead remember how the book made me feel, such that I look back on it more fondly. It's happened enough times that I have a pretty good hunch that's gonna happen with this one. Still, I like to base my reviews on how I felt within a day of completing it, so that's what I'll do here.

The algorithms are gonna peg this one as historical fiction horror, but really it's a western at heart; this kind of story couldn't really be told anywhere other than the American West, and being set in 1915 it almost feels like this is the absolute latest this could be told. We have a protagonist who is leaving the only home she's ever known for middle-of-nowhere Montana because her family had just been murdered (she knew how, but …

Endlich ein spannender Western

4 stars

Fand das Hörbuch zufällig in vöbb/Libby und kann es wärmstens empfehlen.

(Werde meta bleiben weil ich finde, dass jede Inhaltsangabe schon einiges spoilert. Da waren allerdings auch Wendungen drin, die ich nicht erwartet hätte, Hut ab.)

Endlich ein Western der spannend ist, Horror Elemente enthält, in allen Hauptrollen Frauen hat und ohne sexualisierte Gewalt auskommt. Dazu kommt noch ein guter Schuß queere Repräsentation, Women of Color als Protagonistinnen und was mich freut: Gesellschaftskritik, die nicht mit dem Holzhammer kommt. Fand es richtig gut gemacht, größtenteils spannend und auch das Ende glücklicherweise sehr anders als ich es erwartet hätte. Oh und es ist auch immmerhin nicht purer Settler-Kolonialismus, which is nice.

Eine der letzten Plot-Linien hätte ich gerne weiter ausgeführt gehabt, aber das passt schon so.

Content-Hinweis allerdings für einiges an Gewalt (auch gegen Frauen weil naja, Western), Rassismus und Lynchjustiz.