I have done what the verse from Philippians instructed, which is to think about what is good, what is just, what is pure, and what is excellent. And I have arrived at an answer: pacifism. I don't understand all the starred reviews for this book.Perhaps Women Talking works better if you go into it expecting a religiophilosophical analysis, instead of a feminist novelization of a true story. There are some echoes of Plato in here, to be sure. Readers familiar with Socratic discussions will reco

I had to stop And think for a little more than a day on what my rating of this would be, had to separate my feelinges so I could judge what Toews has accomplished by writing this book. Quite frankly, this book made me so angry for the women in this Mennonite enclosed colony in Bolivia. Between 2005 and 2009, over 100 women and children were drugged and raped by male members of their sect. The youngest was three, a great part of what made me so angry. These women were expected to forgive their ra...

the fact that this two hundred-page book took me 2 weeks to read is basically a review in and of itself.I really wanted to like this book, which is based on a true story so horrifying and unbelievable and real that it would be ridiculous if it were never fictionalized. but I just couldn't. for so many little, basically-me-being-nitpicky reasons (including the writing style and the structure and the fact that all the characters were introduced at once in a very similar fashion so that I could nev...

In the loft of a barn, the women of a Mennonite community in Bolivia meet to talk about what they should do, how they could move forward to protect themselves and their daughters from more of the vicious rapes they have endured as they were drugged in the middle of the night. I would have found this hard to imagine if not for this opening sentence of a note by the author before the book begins: “Between 2005 and 2009, in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia (named the Manitoba Colony, after the

The women in this book have been dealt a hand of crappy cards. AND I MEAN *CRAPPY*!!!!!The women need to talk. With only 2 days free until the men in their community return - ( its their intension to bring back the lovely rapists who have been in jail to give them back their RAPING-LEADERSHIP... cuz they are such nice wholesome decent men)...Ha!!!!! So.....while the men are away..., the women will play ( with one man allowed to play too).....Eight women meet secretly- - ‘barn-style’ group-emerge...

I don't know how this book got published.A fictitious account of actual events, a dark and disturbing subject with a plethora of 4 and 5 star reviews. What could go wrong? Well, in the case of this book, everything.The entire book is spelled out in the description. Eight Mennonite women discover that themselves, along with 100+ other women and children in their community, have been drugged and raped by the community men over the course of two years. These eight women gather secretly to discuss w...

"In 2011, eight men belonging to the Manitoba Mennonite Colony were convicted of a series of sexual assaults committed from 2005 to 2009. Prior to the discovery, the rapes had been attributed to a ghost or demon. The victims were reported to be between the ages of 3 and 65. The offenders used a type of gas used by veterinarians to sedate animals during medical procedures. Despite long custodial sentences for the convicted men, an investigation in 2013 reported continuing cases of similar assault...

4+ starsWomen Talking is not perfect but it is very powerful and well worth reading. Miriam Toews announces at the beginning that the book is based on true events in Bolivia, where a number of Mennonite women were raped and abused by a group of men in their community. Women Talking imagines a two day conversation amongst the women as they decide whether to stay or leave their community. The book is very short, but there is so much to the narrative that it defies easy description or critique, but...

This book might be the perfect book club read for 2019. There is plenty to chew on and discuss within this slender volume. The bulk of the story is one long conversation that takes place over the course of two days - the women of an isolated Mennonite colony have been brutally sexually abused, and now they must decide whether to stay in the only home they have known or leave for the greater unknown world. The core of the story is rooted in the tension often found between religion and liberation,...

This was an intense and thought-provoking read. The novel was inspired by a true story of a group of women in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia who learned they had been drugged and raped by the men in their colony. The men had used an animal anesthetic to knock out the women overnight and make them unconscious. The women would wake up in pain, with bloody and bruised bodies. At first the attacks had been blamed on ghosts and demons, and the women felt they were being punished by God. When the truth...

A novel about 8 Mennonite women talking, in a hayloft, with a young man taking notes sounds mundane. But this slim novel hit me hard, to the core of my being. Their matter-of-fact discussion sprinkled with horrifying facts and bits of whimsy was so potent that I had to read it slowly over a week or I would have been paralyzed with grief and anger. That this horror happened, still happens.

My local library book club chose the very topical book, Miriam Toews' Women Talking to review this week. We had a satisfying, lively and intelligent conversation - touching on all aspects of the plight of these women, and women in the world in general. We all agreed that humanity still needs to progress, but that we, as Canadians, have so much to be thankful for. Don't get me wrong: you will still find glass ceilings, discrimination of every sort, and political despots here (our Ford, U.S.'s Tru...

In 2011, news broke worldwide about eight men belonging to a Mennonite Colony in Bolivia being convicted of a series of sexual assaults committed over several years. Over 130 girls and women had been knocked unconscious using an animal tranquilizer and raped by these men. The horror of these facts were amplified by the knowledge that these women were part of a tight knit isolated community and they were made to believe the attacks were the result of ghosts or demons punishing them for their sins...

In October 2019, I attended a fundraiser for the Brooklyn Library. After a donation, I was invited to their annual event in one of the most beautiful libraries in the area, where I met readers and authors both from Brooklyn and nearby communities. As a gift, I was permitted to choose 1 free book from all the nominees included in their annual awards. I chose Women Talking by Miriam Toews because of the summary shared by the editor when this book was mentioned. I knew nothing about it, but given t...

I am glad I read this, because it is based on a true event that I was not aware of. There are several Mennonite societies living in Bolivia. They don't speak Spanish and are not integrated into the larger country. Essentially, they are like little islands unto themselves. Bolivia doesn't get involved even in the crimes members commit, usually. This changed recently.Between 2005 and 2009, eight men in the group raped hundreds of the women and children there. They used an animal tranquilizer that

I don't really know how to review this book. I feel like if I try I will start crying - from sadness or rage. I wish we didn't live in a world where we need this book but oh my god how I needed to read this book. It broke my heart and made me feel like I wasn't alone in my anger. In the last year with so much finally coming to light and so much finally being talked about in more than whispers about rape, sexual harassment, the silencing of women and the gap that still (STILL) exists between men

"We are not members, . . . we are commodities. . . . When our men have used us up so that we look sixty when we’re thirty and our wombs have literally dropped out of our bodies onto our spotless kitchen floors, finished, they turn to our daughters.” This book is aptly named. "Women Talking". A more comprehensive title would be "Women Talking and a Man Taking Notes". That's what happens in this book, women talk and a man jots it all down. Sound boring? Well, at times, yes... but mostly it isn

The true crime at the center of Miriam Toews’s novel “Women Talking” is unspeakable.It sounds like something from the Middle Ages or a dystopia by Margaret Atwood. But, in fact, these horrors took place only a decade ago in the Manitoba Mennonite colony in Bolivia. For several years, more than 100 women and girls woke up in the morning bruised and sore, lying in their own blood. Strictly isolated in this patriarchal religious community, the women were told they must be imagining things or that e...

I started this book on faith after hearing so many people deeply loved it. I skipped it initially, the thought of a book about so much trauma was distasteful, it seemed like it would hurt too much. Then when I started it, for the first hour or so I wasn't exactly sure of what it was. It seemed almost absurd at first, a book that is just what its title says: women talking. A group of women in a room having a conversation. It seemed more like a play than a novel at times, and I wondered what the p...

This book almost reads like a science fiction novel, like some distant cousin of A Handmaid's Tale, until you remember it is based on a true story. A sect of Mennonites live in a distant part of Bolivia, speaking their own language and rarely in contact with the outside world. When it's discovered that the women of the community were being drugged and raped by 8 of the men, the men are arrested and sent to prison in the city. While the rest of the men are away securing the release of the rapists...