Such an intriguing and effective read. Truly brilliant. I adored this by Zumas. Absolutely excellent book and a brilliant read. Recommend!

In the America of Red Clocks, a human embryo has more rights than that of a woman carrying it. Due to a special amendment in the law, abortion is illegal in every state in America and women who attempt an abortion can be jailed. Those who miscarry can be charged with manslaughter or forced to for the funeral of the fetus, and single women who want to adopt are not allowed due to a 'Every Child Needs Two' rule. Even IVF is out of the question as the embryos did not give consent.

This is a strange book to read because even though everything in it seems so over the top and crazy, we all know too well that the strict abortion laws portrayed in this book are almost identical to those currently in place in Poland, and where up until very recently in my own country of Ireland. The journeys American women in this book go on to Canada - a journey of fear, loneliness and pain - is currently being experience by Polish women travelling to neighbouring countries and all the Irish women who took the flight to England, and bled on the way back.

This is actually a book I put off reading for over two years because when I originally received it, Repeal the 8th hadn't yet passed in Ireland and all the fears and entrapment felt by the women in this book were ones I also felt when I fear what would happen if I ever went through an unwanted pregnancy. However, having read it now and at the right time - now Irish women have the control over their own bodies for the first time in a long, long time - I thoroughly enjoyed this book and not just for the points it made (how women and those in vulnerable position are always the ones that are affected the most by insane abortion rules aka men trying to control women's bodies AND abortion laws don't stop abortions from happening, they just stop safe ones)

I liked entering the world of the various women in this book, and all the different things they were going through and how different they all were. I definitely had favourites and least favourites with Ro (The Biographer) being on top and Susan (The Wife) being on the bottom. I actually would have loved more from Gin's perspective (The Mender) as I feel like she had a lot more to tell and give to the story and her character fell a little bit into the stereotype of the witchy woman. Ro also does deal with the cliche of becoming a slightly manic with despair woman desperate for a baby which I have seen before in books and it never really looks great - however, I liked seeing Ro's journey come full circle and her peace and acceptance in where her life would be going next.

While Mattie (The Daughter) played an important part in being the section of the story dealing with the fear and anxiety over an unwanted pregnancy, and the lengths a person will go through to not be pregnant anymore, there wasn't much else to her story. There were times where I couldn't figure her out as she seemed quite smart but she had also been so dumb when it came to Ephraim.

While Susan was interesting in terms of the woman who seems to have it all (almost) but really she doesn't, her storyline is also been there, done that. I do think it would have been better to have a woman who was on the opposite side of the tracks when it came to the abortion laws as all the women we're following agree in a person's right to choose. It was a bit strange having no-one on the other side other than some of the side characters who all happened to be men (Mattie's dad and Mr Fivver for instance).

I did enjoy this a lot, and it was the kind of book when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about reading it which says a lot!

In a near future, Roe v Wade has been overturned in the United States and abortion is now illegal. There is a Pink Wall between the U.S and Canada that prohibits any woman from travelling between countries for healthcare, and a law is about to come into effect that will prohibit single women from availing of IVF treatment or from adopting a child.

Four very different women are affected in several ways by this, or other matters pertaining to childbirth or pregnancy.

Ro, a schoolteacher & biographer, is undergoing fertility treatment but must succeed before a new law is passed that prohibits single women from accessing IVF.

Mattie, a teenage schoolgirl, fears she may be pregnant.

Susan, a mother of two, spends her days daydreaming about what her life could have been like had she not married her husband. Or what it would be like to leave.

Gin lives alone, in the woods, and provides "help" to women who need it via her herbalism.

I loved this - the language is frank and may be shocking to those who don't swear, but this is a book I will remember for a very long time.

I received an e-copy from the publisher via Netgalley, and I am loathe to admit that it took me an embarrassingly long time to get round to reading it.

For everything there is a season; that happens to be my mother’s favourite saying. She’s usually referring to life events but the same can also apply to books, as I found with the marvellous Red Clocks by Leni Zumas, which was published in paperback earlier this year.

I had pounced on this when it came out in hardback last year, after all, how could I not to be drawn to a piece of speculative fiction that examines the lives of four women in a tight-knit community in the US in the near-future when abortion has been outlawed and the tolerance for single parents is about to evaporate? It sounds great, right? And terrifying in its prescience. But the book has divided readers with many struggling with its short, sharp sentences, and others unable to get beyond the politics to feel engaged and affected by the women it portrays.

And initially I felt the same way, putting the back down about 40 pages in when I first gave it a go last year. But the book continued to sell and it was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and so I always had it in the back of my mind to return. Then, as fortune would have it, I finished a book midway through a long journey and this was one of the few other books I had on my Kindle so I thought, hey, I’ll give it another go.

And thank god I did because I enjoyed the book immensely, unable to put it down in the second half as these four lives I was following drew ever closer together, building to a dramatic climax.

I had feared that the politics would overwhelm the story, much like how I found Naomi Alderman’s much-lauded The Power, which also looks at feminism and women’s rights. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead, Leni’s writing builds well, each of the four women coming to life, blossoming and revealing themselves before our eyes – the single woman desperate for a child, the mother having lost her identity in her loveless marriage and joyless responsibilities, the girl accidentally pregnant, and the complicated recluse who supports the desperate women in her community with alternative remedies for terminations.

Like I say, by the end I couldn’t put this down. It’s an overwhelming market out there at the moment for feminist dystopias and speculative fiction but Red Clocks is a welcome and affecting addition.

There’s a few dystopian novels in circulation at the moment, and this is a really good one to add to the list. Involving with a lively pace, and deep message.

I’m not sure if this is fiction or just a scary prediction of our future, because all seems to suggest we are headed no this way. This book is an interesting look at what happens when we lose our reproductive rights (women) an engrossing read that is part horrifying but also unable to tear away from. It’s a chilling read as it’s very scary that it could happen and they are the scariest stories of all. A must read, brilliantly written and a worthy inheritor to the handmaids tale mantle.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

the scariest thing about this book is how real is really could be. It could be our future, and for me firmly sits with 1984 and The handmaids tale on the warning shelf.
we focus on some women, who arent named except by what they do. i wasnt sure if they were linked at first, but it soon became clear when you pay attention. The author makes the reader work for the story by really paying attention but like a good workout you'll be glad you put the effort in.
The story is about abortion being made illegal in every state in the US with Canada are also policing borders to stop Americans trying to come and get illegal treatment across the boarder - something not uncommon in areas of high religious beliefs in current day. The story adds a tightening of the law on IVF and adoption providing a scary insight into a potential future.

this is a gripping and relevant book that explores a dystopian yet scarily plausible vision of the USA in which abortion is criminalised. at times it felt more like a hypothesis than a fictional novel. i wanted to like it more than i did - i feel like the idea had more potential than the execution.

This book was really good, it was such an engrossing read and I still keep thinking about it and it’s weeks and weeks since I read it. This novel follows multiple women in a world were their reproductive rights have been stripped from them. Ro is a single woman who is desperate to be a mother, she can’t adopt because she’s not married and IVF is now illegal. One of Ro’s students is pregnant but doesn’t want to be; abortion is illegal so she’s desperate to find some way of getting rid of her baby. Gin is an outcast, who lives on the fringes of their society, she makes potions and natural remedies to help women but now the authorities are on a witch-hunt. This book is chilling to read at times, it feels very prescient and very possible. It’s a brilliant novel though, one that really makes you think as you learn more about the different perspectives and find out how these women are linked. This is a book I definitely recommend.

This is my first time reading the author. I’m a massive fan of The Handmaid’s Tale and the like so I was looking forward to this. I loved the concept and the fact there is a certain American president who would make the premise of the book a law if he could just add to the intrigue. Unfortunately, does not work for me. I found the book difficult to read at time. The style of writing is a confusing mess and I felt so distant from the characters. Red Clocks could have been a brilliant, engrossing novel, a book about something many woman would find an unbearable nightmare. Yet, it’s not. I felt no emotional connection to the five women who tell their story. The book is all over the place and I just felt completely distanced from the story. I’m sure the author uses emotional detachment for some purpose, to portray the cold, harsh reality of the society in the novel but only manages to push the reader away. The book is written in a disjoined style that left me cold. There are great reams of this book that made no sense. WTF did I just read. Sorry, not for me. I’ve just pre-ordered The Testaments, Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale to cheer myself up.

I’ve seen this marketed as dystopian literature but the terrifying, infuriating thing is that it barely qualifies as speculative. In fact it feels closer than ever after the Kavanagh debacle in the United States and the responses to it.
In Zumas’s upsettingly plausible world women have lost their reproductive rights, both abortion and IVF have been outlawed and the nuclear has been legislated into superiority. It’s a different of extent rather than kind, after all there is plenty of legislation existing that prioritises the rights of “traditional” family structures. Red Clocks is our world; it only needs to tip a little.
The red clocks are the wombs of the four main characters, wombs which society has decided define their roles and their purpose as women. Roberta is single teacher desperate for a child but thwarted by Every Child Needs Two [Parents] legislation and failing artificial insemination. Teenage Mattie is terrified and trapped by her unwanted pregnancy. Gin the witch and healer finds her self-imposed isolation under threat and Susan who feels stifled by the monotony of wife and mother roles
.
The story comes together slowly as we learn the characters and how their lives are defined by their roles, sometimes these are defined by their relationships to others “wife”, “daughter” but even those personally chosen – mender , biographer – can trap and restrain because so many choices are curtailed, legally and socially, by the very fact of their being women.
The influence of the Handmaid's Tale is undeniable (and unavoidable) but what sets it apart from many other Atwood-esque novels is that the quality of the concept is matched by the quality of the writing. The dialogue is excellent and the complex but fluent structure allows the reader to see each character from inside and outside as their lives intersect. The plot is a slow-burn and there is plenty of tension but the story is character-driven. The well-rounded women are allowed to be selfish, judgemental and contradictory, to idealise choice while internally disapproving of the individual choices of others. No women's role is derided by Zumas. Her demand is a woman's right to choose and that every freely-made choice be valued.

It’s clever, it’s angry, it’s nuanced. Each of these women wrestles with choices made, avoided and forbidden; they often conflict and that’s the point. It’s all about wanting and wanting to choose and being free to want more than one thing.

Thank you for the opportunity of reading this book.

Although the concept was brilliant, and the writing done very well - I simply could not connect to the story. I did finish it, however will not review, as I do not want to leave a negative review for you.

Thank you again.

Feminist, female-centered dystopian novels seem all the rage these days, and as much as I'm a fan of the genre I approached Red Clocks tentatively, worried it wouldn't live up to the hype. I need not have worried: Red Clocks is a terrifyingly prescient, depressingly familiar, brilliantly written dystopia which has garnered many (understandable) comparisons to both The Handmaid's Tale and The Power.

When I recently heard that Leni Zumas’ new novel “Red Clocks” was partly inspired by Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves” I felt I had to read it. I love Woolf’s poetically-charged novel so much and it’s lived with me for so many years I feel like it’s a part of my body and soul. The plot of Zumas’ novel doesn’t directly relate to Woolf’s writing but it gives several nods to it and pays tribute to her predecessor so part of the great pleasure of reading this book was knowing I was in the company of a fellow Woolf lover. The epigraph of this novel is a line from Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”. Set on the western US coast it portrays the interweaving lives of four different women in a time when abortion is outlawed in America and legislation is coming into place that requires any child who is adopted to have two parents. Sadly, it’s easy to imagine such regressive laws being put into effect with the current administration. Chapters are headed by a part that these four different women play in the story: the biographer, the mender, the daughter and the wife. So the novel is partly about the way that women can become defined by their roles in life and how society brackets women within a specific function. Of course, their characters are really much more complex than these parts and the story dramatically shows the way women can work together under a political regime that seeks to suppress and control them.

A few of the characters’ names relate directly to “The Waves”. The Mender is named Ginny (spelled differently from the character Jinny in “The Waves”) and whose demeanour is very different from Woolf’s creation in that Ginny is a modern-day apothecary who only uses natural herbs and organic concoctions to treat women in need. She lives in rural isolation, pines for the affair she had with a man’s wife and aspires to self sufficiency which make most of the local community “think she’s unhinged, a forest weirdo, a witch.” Ginny’s surname is Percival and comes from a lineage of “menders” she aspires to emulate and who were equally misunderstood and scorned women. In “The Waves” Percival is the elusive hero at the centre who all the characters admire and love. So, in a sense, it feels that by giving her character Ginny this surname Zumas is seeing her work as a writer in a tradition aligned with Woolf.

The Wife of the story is named Susan. Her promising legal career has long been left behind in order to become a full time mother to two children and her relationship to her husband has severely deteriorated despite her efforts to rescue it. It’s interesting how the character of Susan in “The Waves” is the most maternal and domestically-orientated one of the bunch, but over the course of her life she finds herself steeped in regret and sorrow for her stymied passions despite finding so much superficial contentment. I’ve always felt a deep affection for her so I enjoyed how Zumas creates in a modern version of this character the ability for her to pursue new avenues in her life that can exist alongside motherhood (without being anyone’s wife).

The most fascinating character relationship between “The Waves” and “Red Clocks” is with Zumas’ character Roberta Stephens. Obviously, Stephen was Virginia Woolf’s maiden name. But Roberta is a teacher and writer working on a biography of an obscure woman named Eivør Minervudottir who was a polar hydrologist and arctic explorer “whose trailblazing research on pack ice was published under a male acquaintance’s name”. (Incidentally, Minervudottir’s uncle is a lighthouse keeper.) Short passages of her writing about Minervudottir are positioned in between the sections about these modern-day women. In “The Waves” each section is interspersed with a passage about the movement of light over the course of a day. So, by including these passages about Minervudottir, Zumas shows the way the struggles and ambition of historic women still resonate in the lives of women today. I also highly appreciate how these passages so Roberta’s writing process with lines crossed out as she aspires to articulate what she wants to express in the biography she’s writing.

While these are specific references that relate to “The Waves” in ways that might be incidental (but which excite me to read about because I’m such a fan of the novel), the overall tone of the writing is unique and compulsively readable. Zumas uses such unique turns of phrase. In one section, a character feels as if she’s surrounded by “a crowd of vulvic ghosts”. But there are occasional lines which feel so resonant of Woolf’s writing they might be lifted from one of her novels. Zumas describes “the ocean beyond, a shirred blue prairie stretching to the horizon, cut by bars of green. Far from shore: a black fin” and later on how “Canned tomatoes make loud red suns across her vision.” The novel has touches of this Woolfian description and imagery which gives another sort of lovely tribute to the modernist writer, but overall it is infused with a much more modern sound and resonance.

I also appreciated the way these characters’ stories make a larger message about the way women relate to their bodies changes when put under restrictive legal measures. More generally, women are often made to feel that they inhabit a biological clock which gives them a limited time frame in which to bear children. Zumas poignantly describes how this is a pressure that some women feel dearly. The larger political message this story creates is skilfully envisioned especially in how the relationship between the US and Canada changes when a “pink wall” is created that disallows American women from seeking out abortions across the border. “Red Clocks” feels like such a timely book and it’s an imaginative and enjoyable read. You certainly don’t need to be a fan of Virginia Woolf to appreciate it, but it adds another dimension to how you can read this novel.

My thoughts on this are all jumbled up; I thought I would adore this and it is not a bad book by any means but it took me three months to finish this. I could just not get on board and I am not quite sure where my problems lie.

I love the plausibility of the world Leni Zumas has created here, it feels organic in a way that is scary and frustrating. Set in the not so distant future, reproductive rights have been severely limited: abortion is illegal in all and every circumstances (and in fact considered murder), in-vitro fertilization is unavailable, and soon adoption will only be possible for straight, married couples. Told from five different perspectives, Zumas shows the far-reaching consequences these changes to the law might have. Her world is plausible and aggrevating and often feels contemporary rather than speculative.

My main problem were the characters that often felt underdeveloped and not particularly fleshed-out. As they are often refered to by a descriptor (“the mother”, “the daughter” etc.) this was probably on purpose: these things that are happening do not happen to these women because of who they are but rather because of the way the social structure is set up. Intellectually, I get, emotionally, I did not care for their stories at all. There was a large chunk in the middle that did not work for me because of that distance. I do think that the storylines converged nicely in the end and that the character development if slight did work.

I enjoyed Leni Zumas’ particular prose a whole lot and thought it added a nice layer of urgency and intimacy to an otherwise distant book. Her sentences are choppy but have a nice rhythm to them.

When i started this book I didn't think i would make it to the end. It seemed fragmented and blurred. However the author creates a powerful story of a society where Abortion and IVF are illegal and adoption only possible for the married couple. The characterisation is realistic and I became quite emotionally involved in the story lines of Ro. Susan. Mattie and Gin. I liked their identification as Wife. daughter, mender, biographer. I can, however, simply not understand the role of Eivør the Polar explorer. She doesn't fit into the storyline, doesn't impact on anyone else and for me fills little purpose simply added to the fragmentation.

In the not too distant future abortion is illegal. IVF has been banned and the clock is ticking for any women who wants to have a child past a certain age or a child on her own. This is America. In one city, four women deal with their own lives in relation to these changes. This is their story. A pregnant teenager, a healer trying to help, a frustrated mother and a woman wanting to be a mother more than anything.

I knew I wanted to read this as soon as it was released so as soon as I could I requested it and was graciously given a copy to review and devoured it. The scariest thing about this novel, it could be a reality in the US from recent news, which is exactly why you need to read it.

One of the best parts of this novel is that women come through for women but not in a cheesy way. Becuase of the situation they are in there is a vibe where women pass on vital knowledge to other women to help each other but not in a cheesy way. Also, this novel isn’t about hating men. Are there some terrible guys in this? Yes, but most importantly they are not the focus, not a plot point they just exist. This is a novel for an about women.

The one criticism that I have is that I felt the character of Susan, a frustrated mother didn’t add that much to the story. I understood why she was included but I just felt a little irritated with her and her perspective on things. You don’t need to like every character in a book and out of the four main women she was the one I felt the least connected with in any way.

I gave this 4 stars. I was thinking about this constantly for about a week after reading it. I had so many thoughts, questions and a little bit of anxiety. That said, it is a really important novel and a stunning debut. I can’t wait to see what Zumas comes up with next.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for my review copy

I absolutely and utterly loved this book. I had had my eye on it for a while and dived at the chance to review it. Set in our world and time but with a new law introduced throughout the US, restricting adoption and prohibiting abortion the story follows 4 women, known by their roles in society; The Mender, The Daughter, The Wife and The Biographer. Each one affected in some way by the new rules. Red Clocks follows their intertwined lives.
It put's the life of women and what makes a woman under a microscope.
I will admit this book isn't for everyone, the writing style is very unique, but I loved it. From the moment I picked up the book, I couldn't put it down. I loved the characters and how genuine they were and I felt all their emotions along with them, the despair the confusing, the hope. I loved seeing how they intertwined and enjoyed seeing them crop up in one another's chapter.
This book was a look into the future at a completely plausible and terrifying situation. It was fantastic.

Ever since the signing of Roe vs Wade there has been people who’ve wanted to overturn it. In Red Clocks, Leni Zumas imagines just that. There has been no government takeover by an extreme Christo-conservative regime, merely the ‘Personhood Amendment’. Abortion is completely criminalised, IVF banned, a ‘Pink Wall’ stands between America and Canada to arrest women seeking such procedures under the charge of conspiracy to murder, and in fifteen days unmarried persons will be prohibited from adopting. In a small town in Oregon Red Clocks follows five women, young and old, living with old restrictions back in place.

In short, it bridges the gap between the now and Handmaid’s Tale; the complacency that allowed such an amendment to be passed, the disregard of men who don’t understand or care about its effects, and how women continue to navigate being a person when their country may only see a womb, a red clock.

There is “The Wife” (Susan), mother to two and married to one thoroughly ungrateful husband. “The Daughter” (Mattie), a star student that finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. “The Mender” (Gin), an eccentric women living out in the woods with her goats and especial knowledge of plants and herbs that lands her on trial like she’s back in Salem with her ancestors. Then there is “The Biographer” (Ro) , a teacher, single, longing for a child her body can’t provide, and writing a biography of Eivør, a long dead polar explorer who had to fight her way to study science only to be silenced because no one would believe a woman had written about ice floes.

Each chapter is presented from the perspective of their titular character, at first I found this a little difficult to follow as names were not presented immediately but once settled in to the style it read as easily as any other book. Readers are able to piece the town together where the characters overlap, as expected of small towns everyone knows everyone else. It wasn’t lost on me either the parallel between characters and their titles. Susan and Mattie fit traditional gender roles and are defined by them, being a wife, being a daughter. Gin and Ro forge their lives outside of those expectations, whether by choice or circumstance, and are defined by their deeds. A risky narrative device, or little reminder that in a male-supremacist world a woman’s relation to a man trumps autonomy.

Red Clocks is a novel of ideas in that it takes the grain of criminalised abortion and reasons out the consequences from ripple to ripple. However, there’s also the underlining accusation of complacency, and sleep walking in to legislation because we left the decisions to someone else with an agenda. . How many times since 2016 have we heard the phrase “I never thought it would actually happen”? But it’s not all doom and gloom, there is humour (clap clap say the labia), and a realist description of women’s lives, even the grisly parts.
I want everyone to read this book. Especially the pro-lifers whose arguments never seem to go beyond carrying a pregnancy to term, though I feel Red Clocks will end up preaching to the converted. This book is important because it is not like Handmaid’s Tale. It’s not set in a radical dystopia which could be written off as “oh just fictional”, the only difference between the world of Red Clocks and our own is the Personhood Amendment. It addresses the affect such legislation would have on us alive right now, not imagined women in a far future. Like the official summary says, it’s frighteningly plausible.

I’ve heard so much about this book this year and for the most part it lives up to it’s hype. Reminiscent of books such as The Power in that it takes different perspectives of different characters within the narrative, Red Clocks is departs from this in that Zumas’ drama is building and tense as the story begins to emerge.

Speculative Fiction like this (as damn, I can imagine this plot happening) feels so intense, as it feels so intimate, you see everything through these characters and it can almost feel uncomfortable to read as the story goes on. It can be difficult to follow these women’s stories in it’s moments as it changes from one perspective to another, but this book eventually does connect together in the end and it makes for a heavy but great read.

A book that feels very real and intense from the start, this book has a mood from the beginning that lets you know you’re in for a wild ride and if you are able to handle the subject matter, this is a fantastic read.