Rosalie Morales Kearns

Given the outpouring of stories about men who have taken advantage of their positions of power to sexually harass and abuse women, this novel is especially timely. In it, bands of vigilante women target rapists and other perpetrators of violent misogyny--perpetrators who have escaped punishment by the justice system.

Yet to the great credit of the book, its treatment of vengeance is far richer and more nuanced than this vigilantism suggests. That’s thanks to the central character, Averil Parnell, a practitioner of a progressive, nonpatriarchal form of Catholicism. Over the course of the novel, Parnell is personally and spiritually tested by violence—committed both against and by women—and as she grapples with how to respond to it, she raises an important question for herself, her community, and readers: can mercy have a place in the delivery of justice? Or, more pointedly, can justice truly be delivered in the absence of mercy?… (mais)