Elizabeth Wetmore

Written with the haunting emotional power of Elizabeth Strout and Barbara Kingsolver, an astonishing debut novel that explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s. Mercy is hard in a place like this . . . It's February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town's men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow. In the early hours of the morning after Valentine's Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead's ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field--an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, one of the town's women decides to take matters into her own hands, setting the stage for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences. Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope. Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader's heart, this fierce, unflinching, darkly funny, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women's strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive.

Valentine

Heather Margaret

hold this spot and I’ll be back with a review cause oh wow oh man I LOVED this book

elizabeth

This novel covers multiple storylines, but I almost hesitate to call them storylines. I hesitate to say this book tells a story at all. It's more like a collection of snapshots. Like a coffee table photography book with black and white photos of women that's called Odessa or something. 

The storylines (I'll still call them that, but you get the point) follow multiple girls and women of Odessa, Texas. While the synopsis on the cover frames Glory's rape as the focal point of these storylines, it's more like very loosely-woven thread. The first part of the book, which does center around Glory's experience, is so sharp and affecting; I wasn't expecting it to become so obscured by the kind of slow-moving and murky plots (though filled with full, real-feeling characters) that follow. Glory's experience comes back into focus more toward the end, at which point the novel feels lucid and active again. 

Perhaps my reading experience would have been a little more positive if I knew that this would not be a book that follows Glory, that it would be a book that captures this time and place, Odessa in 1976. While very little actually happens in the middle 75% of this novel, it's a testament to Wetmore's atmospheric and descriptive-but-not-fluffy writing that I felt so fully transported to Odessa.

Alexa M

"'Listen this is a war story.' Or maybe, 'this is yours'." 

i did really like this story about women, however, i was hoping to get a little bit more out of it! i think this book's downfall was it's length, to be honest. i did really like and connect with most of the women in this book and wish we could have got to know them a bit more!

Cheri McElroy

4.5 stars, rounded up.

The plot revolves around young Glory Ramirez, who was raped and brutally beaten, in Odessa Texas in 1976. But the book isn’t really about the plot; it’s about the women of Odessa.

It’s about Mary Rose, trapped in marriage to a man who is angry at her for helping Glory; Corinne, trying to put her life together after her husband has died; 10 year old Debra Anne, trying to deal with a mother who said she loved her-but then left home; Suzanne, trying to outrun her past and prove herself to everyone. 

This book is gorgeously written, especially for a debut novel. The lives of these women intersect and through all the tragedy and pain, hope comes from their relationships. 

I knocked a half star off for strong language and the stereotype of Christians, because those bother me. But this story will stay with me.

Victoria Alexandra 

I truly want to give Valentine a much higher rating unfortunately I just don’t feel that it hit the mark for me. The atmosphere this books places you in is just absolutely perfect. As a southern girl living in the Pacific Northwest I felt that I was basking in the desert sun, for that reason alone this book was beautiful. However, I feel that this book could have really opened up the emotions and ugliness of the crimes taking place. We somewhat see the transformation in all of the characters but there isn’t enough conversation and inner monologue surrounding how the chain of events changed each character.

Celeste Richardson

Valentine is absolutely gorgeous. The writing is so vivid and transporting that I felt like I indwelled each character during their prospective chapters. It’s also one of the most tragic, heartbreaking stories I’ve read in a very long time. My heart almost physically ached during my time reading this book. But most of all, Valentine is immensely powerful. It proclaims an almost rebellious resilience in the face of heinous adversity that is fiercely and unequivocally feminist, and I felt impacted by it at a soul-deep level.
“Mercy is hard in a place like this…”
It took me a bit of time to adjust to the author’s choice to not include quotation marks in her dialogue. After I acclimated, I really appreciated this decision, because it ensured that readers are getting the story exclusively from the minds of the perspective characters. I realized that not a single man actually spoke a word over the course of this story. Every line of male dialogue is conveyed by the woman who remembers it, and there was something profound about that decision. Wetmore is giving a voice to the women who live their lives unheard, and denying a voice to the men who have kept these women quiet. The marginalized and disenfranchised are given the chance to scream their pain and rage at the top of their lungs, even if only inside their minds. They will be ignored no longer, at least in the pages of this book.
“Every August for the nearly thirty years she taught English, in an overheated classroom filled with farm boys and cheerleaders and roughneck wannabes reeking of aftershave and perfume, Corinne would spot the name of at least one misfit or dreamer on her fall roster. In a good year there might be two or three of them—the outcasts and weirdoes, the cellists and geniuses and acne ridden tuba players, the poets, the boys whose asthma precluded a high school football career and the girls who hadn’t learned to hide their smarts. Stories save lives, Corinne had said to those students. To the rest of them she said, I’ll wake you when it’s over.”
The terror induced by motherhood is thoroughly explored here, and how that fear can reshape a life. Motherhood is also shown as something to be feared in and of itself in a time and town where girls are kicked out of school just as soon as they’re visibly pregnant, and that condition seems to befall most every girl in the area while they’re still children themselves. We also see how racism, money, and rigid gender roles can choke a town into something poisoned and utterly devoid of kindness. We see a time when domestic abuse was so common that most didn’t even consider it abuse, and when victim shaming was so expected that rape victims kept silent. We see prejudice in a multitude of forms. But we also see a ferocity in these women and girls, and sometimes even mercy on behalf of others though they themselves have been shown none. They are survivors who have fought for that survival, and no man will take it from them.
“In the church where I grew up, we were taught that sin, even if it happens only in your heart, condemns you all the same. Grace is not assured to any of us, maybe not even most of us, and while being saved gives you a fighting chance, you must always hope that the sin lodged in your heart, like a bullet that cannot be removed without killing you, is not of the mortal kind.”
There was no melodrama in this story. Every moment of drama was real and harsh and necessary. Something about this book reminded me of certain classic Greek tragedies like Antigone or Medea. Not the plot, but the idea of women surviving adversity and finding strength and a voice in spite of the men who wish to suppress them. Madeline Miller’s Circe evoked a similar aura of resiliency around her title character. This could have made every male character in the periphery of Valentine into a crude caricature, but Wetmore didn’t paint all men as evil; just some men. We see a loving husband and a caring uncle and a gentle friend, who serve as reminders that savagery is a choice made, not a genetic component that comes with a penis. But we also see women who are afraid to speak up for themselves or for others, who purposely turn a blind eye because they don’t want to feel uncomfortable. All of these characters, whether male or female, perspective or secondary, are utterly and completely human, with all the good and ill that title holds.
“Our great-grandmothers feigned frailty until it was stitched to their hearts. Some of us still do the same. To speak up would require courage that we cannot even begin to imagine.

Are we guilty? We are guilty as sin, guilty as the day is long. If we every stopped and thought about it for very long, and we try not to, our guilt would be as bright and heavy as sunlight in August.”
This is a book where setting really matters. I’ve been in an oil town during a boom, and Wetmore captured it exactly. These towns become their own weird microcosm within society, and draw more criminals and their crimes than just about anywhere else in the States. Wetmore also did a great job of painting Texas in all its beautiful desolation. I could taste the dust and smell the gas and feel the storms brewing in the background. Texas might be harsh and hot, but there is nothing quite as breathtaking as seeing that expanse of sky, whether it’s blue as far as the eye can see or scattered with countless stars or turning the purple of a bruise as a storm moves in. And Wetmore was able to present both sides of this location incredibly well. As did the cover art, actually. Those rigs in the background could almost be horses. The writing was stellar, as well, and is what sets this novel more in the literary fiction genre than strictly historical fiction, in my opinion.
“In wrath may you remember mercy…”
Valentine is the most powerful debut I’ve read outside of the fantasy genre since I fell in love with The Resurrection of Joan Ashby. I was moved and enraged by nearly every page. It made me think, and reminded me to really appreciate where and when I live. I’m incredibly thankful that no part of this book felt like a page out of my own life. While it is definitely a difficult book to read due to the content, I absolutely recommend Valentine to any reader who wants a rallying cry to stand up for those who have been marginalized, and a reason to applaud those who live through trauma and don’t let it define them.

You can find  this review and more at Novel Notions.

Jeff Brown 

If that was a debut, I can't wait for the sophomore release!

Odessa, Texas, in 1976, sounded like a truly disgusting place to live. The nature of the area -- rock-hard ground from constant drought; dust storms and tornadoes you can see miles and miles away; the rare flash floods where there's nowhere for the water to go but wherever it wants -- plus the unnatural nature -- oil wells; the horrid smell of the storage facilities and the burn off of gas; massive class divide, rampant racism, misogyny, injustice, and fear -- define Odessa of the time.

While its the latter that defines West Texas, as it is built and run by men, this is the story of the women, in a way, that are left behind -- either by men practically working 24/7 so the families can live dollar-to-dollar, or by the danger and stress of working the rigs.

The story is book-ended by the rape of 14-year-old Gloria Ramirez and her fight to survive and move on. But the book also involves the woman (Mary Rose) who found her at her door, and the breakdown that ensues as she faces testifying at trial as the town turns on her; an older woman (Corrine) who is drinking and smoking herself to death after her husband commits suicide; a mother who tries to rise above everything as the perfect Avon lady, only to continue to be dragged down with the rest of the town; a Scout-like child whose mother ran away, and in her wanderings around town, befriends a gentle, but struggling homeless Vietnam vet.

The unexpected bond developed by young, frightened Mary Rose and rapidly declining Corrine is one of the strongest parts of the book. Corrine fights off her demons to protect and support Mary Rose in her time of need.

The characters each present personal and intimate looks at their thoughts, revealing their hopes, fears, regrets, and longings through internal dialogues. One could get lost in each of these character's stories, but the author brings them together into a broader, more complex story that really shows the struggle of living in West Texas at the time. 

I hope living there is a bit better these days.

A wonderful debut book whose strong feminine cast shines brilliantly against the stark, gritty reality of the old dusty oil town.

Bryanna M

The beginning of this made me think it was going to be fantastic, and while the characters and setting are done really well, the majority of the book (the whole middle section) isn’t really at all about the plot that the synopsis advertises. Great writing, but I got a little bored and had to push through just to finish it

Lauren Attaway

Just as beautifully written, heartbreaking, and beloved as everyone described. I loved this book.

Emma Myers

** spoiler alert **
           I wish they shot him and hid his body somewhere. I also wish gloria became close friends through it. But still an interesting book

Jessika Rucker

TRIGGER WARNING: This story revolves around the rape of a young girl and the trial. Only the first few chapters are graphic. I have mixed feelings about this book. I loved the storyline of Gloria and Mary Rose. Honestly, it was the only storyline I was interested in, and it’s so bad we didn’t get too much from them. I also wasn’t a fan of the lack of quotation marks in the book. It was nice to have a change in this book, but it was a little hard to keep up with the dialogue and the thoughts of the narrator. I also felt like there was too much going on. While the book seemed to surround the trial, we looked into the lives of a few women in the town. This made it feel like the plot wasn’t really moving forward. I felt that the plot was at a standstill for most of a lot of the book.

Valentine

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