Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This novel won’t be for everyone: it is a devastating exploration of how a brutal rape traumatizes and impacts various women in the 1970s West Texas oil patch town of Odessa. The book is a dark and haunting examination of the worst parts of humankind, the cowardice of community mob mentality, frustrating in its revelations of people failing to do what’s right at so many turns. But it also contains hope — underlying relentless courage, the refusal to be marginalized and silenced. The writing is strong and stark, a tone that resonates structurally around several remarkable characters, the bleakness of their circumstances, but remarkably, their will to survive on their own terms.
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