Gather the Daughters

Is it weird that I am drawn to dark stories? Because I was drawn to this one and I could not stop myself from reading all of this in one sitting. How do I begin to describe my experience with this book? Gather the Daughters does not really introduce any new concepts: there are plenty of dystopian novels that give men the power over women, and control breeding and number of offspring. The idea of knowledge being restricted is also not unique. However, there was something about this story that pulled me in and kept me interested. For one thing, this is not a novel you can read quickly; it has a slower pace and to enjoy it, you need to take your time with it. The story is told only from the perspectives of the daughters; there are no show more adults telling this tale. This is something I really liked because it gave a different outlook to the events. It actually made me more uncomfortable to read it from the voice of these girls who have never known a life outside of this one, who only have their laws to define things as "right" or "wrong", and who still are able to recognize when something being done to them is not okay. It's hard to read about their suffering, which only seems to grow as the story continues. Even though the concepts mentioned here are nothing new, this novel manages to pack a powerful punch. This is not an easy read by any standards, but it is a good one nevertheless. This novel is gripping, disturbing, and emotionally-charged. There is so much more I want to say about this novel, but I don't think I have the words. My final verdict? I'm giving this a 5/5 stars.

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Gather the Daughters takes a familiar trope and ups the ante. Many novels explore what happens when people, often repressed or with little power, question their roles in society. Yet, few go to the extremes Ms. Melamed’s debut novel does. With her study of family dynamics and the power each familial role holds in a highly patriarchal society, what she has to say not just shocks the senses but is quite memorable as well. For better or worse, you finish her novel forever changed, a rare thing in this day and age.

For not being remotely explicit in the roles of daughter, father, mother, and son, Ms. Melamed makes her points with disturbing clarity. From the opening page, readers experience discomfort without understanding why they feel show more this way. After all, there is nothing overt about the characters or the story that should make readers uncomfortable. Still, the feeling remains without being able to pinpoint its source. However, sentence by sentence, Ms. Melamed paints a picture not easy to ignore or avoid. The painting may be impressionistic, but there is no doubt as to its meaning and the truth displays itself in all its unsettling glory.

Gather the Daughters is like a dystopian novel on steroids. Children are not killing children, and there is no big bad government trying to rule the world. However, what does exist on the island challenges the fabric of society. It makes you question the original ancestors and the rules they established for their new society. It makes you question the ideas of obedience and the parent-child relationship as well as the more generic adult-child relationship. There are no easy answers to any of what Ms. Melamed posits; the questions alone are disturbing enough to make you wonder if you even want to know the answers. Yet, no matter how much you might wish otherwise, Gather the Daughters is not a novel easily dismissed. It finds a way to sneak into your soul, emerging when you least expect it and forcing you to examine the novel compared today’s society. show less

This was masterfully crafted. An excellent recommendation for all the people watching The Handmaid's Tale right now or who want a dystopian tale that pulls in issues of religion, patriarchy, and reproduction. It was vague in excellent places that keep you from fully understanding this world and explicit to make sure you don't get lost. The ending was abrupt, but not in a bad way. This book wouldn't be so powerful if we saw all the answers at the end.

Set on a small island, location and time period unspecified, a culture that has purposely set itself aside from the mainstream clings to a narrow and strict set of standards handed down from "the ancestors" who fled a wasteland of fire and destruction.

At least, that's what the residents of the island are told. The resulting isolation and inbreeding -- mental as well as physical -- have reached a pressure point just as one girl on the brink of womanhood begins to question the ancestors' authority and whether things must always remain the same.

That's the setup for Melamed's novel of rebellion and despair, in some ways reminiscent of 'The Handmaid's Tale', particularly in the restrictive and sexually-oriented role of the women -- or, in show more this case, of the girls on the edge of and barely across the threshhold of puberty. The novel centers around Janey, who consciously starves herself to prevent menarche, Vanessa, whose father is one of the wanderers -- the ruling class and the only ones permitted to leave the island, Amanda, who awaits the birth of her first child with an ever-growing sense of dread, and Caitlin, born in the wastelands but brought to the island as a toddler.

It takes a while for the narrative to settle down, and a while longer than that for the different personalities of the girls to define themselves for the reader. And while all this is going on, the reader slowly begins to realize that something is very, very wrong just beneath the surface of this fundamentalist society.

This book is not for everyone, and many will be appalled when they finally come to understand the rot at the heart of the culture. Others may read it as an allegory, or as an examination of the price to be paid by those who rebel against an oppressive system. show less

The Organized Abuse of Women and Children

Jennie Melamed’s debut novel Gather the Daughters could not be more timely as it comes on the heels of the #MeToo movement, the Weinstein case, and a U.S. president with a history of abusing women, not to mention supporting others doing the same. In Melamed’s novel, the abuse begins early, with the male members of her fictional patriarchal religious cult having sex with their daughters prior to puberty, before turning these children over to other men for marriage and child bearing shortly after puberty. All this is done in the service of escaping and living free of what they call “the wasteland,” that is, our modern world, and perpetuating an isolated primitive agrarian and tradesman show more barter society. This cult featuring sexual abuse is not without real life precedent. One has only to recall some recent infamous examples, among them David Berg’s Children of God, David Koresh’s Branch Davidians, and Warren Jeffs’ Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Melamed paints the full picture of her fictional patriarchal cult through the eyes of a handful of girls on the verge of puberty. Janey proves the most rebellious. She is older then the others, slowly starving herself like an anorexia to forestall her puberty. She doesn’t want to end up like the other girls, married off immediately after puberty in what’s called the summer of fruition. These married off girls begin having babies immediately, though by the law of the religion they can only have two healthy children. That means they are mothers and women of the community when they are thirteen or so. Their mothers, then, are women in their mid to late twenties. There are no grandparents, because once people reach the end of their usefulness, they drink the draft and take their place buried in the fields. Janey leads the girls in a rebellion, which consists of leaving their homes, living on the beach, and foraging for their existence. Obviously, as the leaders, called Wanders (those who travel off the island for needed supplies), know this cannot go on forever. Vanessa is another girl with her doubts and own quieter rebellious tendency. Her father is one of the Wanders and, unlike his counterparts, is thoughtful and kind. You might even like him, if you can put out of your mind that he sleeps with his daughter. Crisis arrives in the form of a contagious illness that sweeps through this society, killing many, necessitating that the wanders seek new members from the outside. In some ways, the illness proves fortuitous, as all the island inbreeding has resulted in increasing defective birth.

What you have here are men exerting absolute control over women and children by isolating them, instilling discipline and fear by tailoring a religion to their desire, and by engaging in acts of abuse, rape, pedophilia, and murder. It’s not a pretty tale, but some may regard it as an exaggerated metaphor of how men have treated women over the ages. Pastor Saul sums up matters nicely after the great bout with disease and the restocking of the island with new recruits in his sermon, attributing the suffering to disobeying the ancestors:

“As I look upon us, I can see the reasons for their displeasure. We have strayed from them. We have strayed from their vision and their holiness. We clot up the minds of our daughters with useless knowledge, instead of taking the precious time to teach them to be a solace to their fathers. Wives have forgotten how to be a support to their husbands. We let our aged live too long, past their prime years, for the simple reason that our hearts are soft. Men are swayed by the words of women, by the words of wives and daughters who refuse to submit to their will as wives and daughters should.”

Well done about a world rational people would run screaming from. And, yet, these little worlds in degrees exist today. show less

Wow!!! where to start with Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed.
This book was completely unlike anything I have ever read. What drew me here initially was the depiction outlined initially in the storyline. the idea of a secret dystopian island, a cult really fired my imagination and I so desperately wanted to know more about this shrouded undisclosed society.
To summarise, we have an island where the ancestors are gods and the wanderers keep order adding to the list of commandments forced on the island's inhabitants.But in reality, it's the men that rule mainly the self-important wanderers who seem to be the only ones completely aware of the whole truth that exists here.
In this very different civilisation, There are some very strange show more custom's, the children run free naked and covered in mud all summer, it has almost a lord of the flies feel about their summer activities.
As soon as a girl bleeds then she is a woman a child no longer and expected to marry. so here we are talking girls as young as twelve, thirteen marrying older boys of seventeen eighteen.
There is also a very dark undertone beneath island life, fathers are taught to love their daughters literally, this incest is not described graphically it is only referred to in passing, it's a fact of general everyday life almost like brushing your teeth or combing your hair just normal, so common place,, the rule rather than the exception.
This strangely addicting tale is told through the eyes of several of the young girls who call this
abnormal existence home.
What happens when the sheep who blindly follow their masters question their very existence.
What lies beneath this facade of normality.
When the children start rebelling, it sets off a spiral off events that show the rot under the floorboards.
This was an amazingly interesting read that I really enjoyed. It's one of those books that you can really sink your teeth into and makes you think more about what we are told versus what we really should ask and should we blindly follow the rules or query the regime we are born in to.
I received a free E-Copy of Gather The Daughters from NetGalley and this is my own honest opinion.

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This book was recommended to me on an “if you like that book, then try this book” list. The premise sounded interesting enough, but I had NO idea what I was getting into. This book should have come with trigger warnings… like ALL of them — eating disorders, physical abuse, sexual abuse, incest, pedophilia, murder, suicide. It’s messed up.

The story is told from the perspective of the daughters on the island, who are raised to believe that the regular abuses they are subjected to is normal. One girl witnesses the murder of one of her friends, and that triggers a ripple effect among the daughters, resulting in a rebellion. Unfortunately a plague sends the girls home, ending the rebellion, and ultimately killing most of the people show more on the island. The aftermath is a terrifying uncertainty for those that remain.

Bleak and horrifying as it was, the story was very well written and it was difficult to not get emotionally invested in the well-being of these innocent girls. It makes you think about the self-importance and depravity of man, the willful ignorance of people, and the tragic consequences that can result from all of it.

Compelling, haunting, and extremely disturbing. This is writing that will wake you up at night and keep you awake out of genuine concern for the fictional characters. Not recommended for the faint of heart. Don’t come here looking for a happy ending. You may want a palate cleanser at the ready for when you finish reading. show less