Name: Liyah 🤎's review of The Change by Kirsten Miller
Item: The Change
Rating: 4
Author: Liyah 🤎

Kirsten Miller

Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick--a gloriously entertaining and knife-sharp feminist revenge fantasy about three women whose midlife crisis brings unexpected new powers--putting them on a collision course with the evil that lurks in their wealthy beach town. In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment... After Nessa James's husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she's left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn't take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead--a gift she's inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities. On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn't left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriet's life is far from over--in fact, she's undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis. Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw--until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power. Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl's murder leads to more bodies, and to the town's most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don't apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriet will take matters into their own hands...

A Novel

The Change

Genesis (@whisperingchapters)

Liyah 🤎

A really interesting read! The positives: enjoyed how the story wasn’t written entirely linearly and you got to really deep dive on the rich backstories of even seemingly minor characters and how interconnected they all were, the character’s narration was very engaging, i enjoyed the diversity of the women represented. There were a good bit of surprising twists. The book really stuck the landing on punishing the bad guys imo. 

The Negatives: i felt the mystery stretched on way too long considering the one of the big reveals is in the description of the book. we spent a long time looking for a single culprit and rotating through an ever expanding list of big bads before the book finally finally at the very end landed on what i’d known since i started the book.I got bored in the middle and had to stop and come back There was another twist attached to it but still could’ve got there much faster. 

The ambivalent: the feminism of the book is…a mixed bag. I liked that it paid fair attention to the class/race diversity of women and that it focused on the physical violence of the patriarchy and not just sociocultural things like division of labor which a lot of new feminist media does. I enjoyed that the characters were older women! I liked that it did not shy away from self defense. However, at times it was heavy handed although less heavy handed than a lot of things I;ve read. I didn’t like it calling women a “species” and implying they were fundamentally different then men vs a system of patriarchy creating differences. Also couldve connected patriarchy class and white supremacy on a structural level more elegantly. it felt implied when it should've been hammered home.

If you liked this book I recommend “When Women Were Dragons”

garnet

2.5 rounded up — i just got bored like halfway through and couldn’t get back into it

Cheri McElroy

Three women with powers. Strength, Retribution, Hearing the Dead. And midlife is the perfect time to reinvent themselves-and help the helpless along the way.

As a late 50s woman I could not love this more. It’s not too late to make a difference-and show your inner witch sometimes. Read this book.

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
The Change by Kirsten Miller

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Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &The Change by Kirsten Miller

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Join the club

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
The Change by Kirsten Miller