Shannon Miz's Reviews > Womb City

"Content notice: Womb City contains depictions of blood, body horror, car accident, child death, death, death of parent, domestic abuse, drug use, emotional abuse, gaslighting, gore, grief, infertility, infidelity, kidnapping, miscarriage, misogyny, murder, physical abuse, pregnancy, rape, sexism, sexual violence, and violence."

So, before we get to it, this is a dark book, which you can likely tell by the content warnings above from the start of the book. So please take care of yourselves if any of this is too much for you! The commentary that comes out of all of those awful concepts though felt certainly worth the read for me. This is not awfulness for the sake of awfulness, it is to demonstrate the society that our main character Nelah finds herself in. Things are not pretty. Especially for a woman, and even more especially for a woman of color, the world is a very unkind place (see what I mean about the commentary? This is rather important stuff, friends.) Also, because Nelah finds herself in a body of someone deemed "criminal", and therefore has lost the right to any privacy, including her innermost thoughts, which are monitored by her (awful) husband.

What Worked For Me:

Obviously, saying I "enjoyed" this book would be a misnomer. I appreciate this book. I find a lot of value in this book. This book tells a great story. And that is the crux of what worked for me- seeing Nelah fight, and being mad as hell that Nelah has to fight so constantly. And look- Nelah has flaws of her own, don't misunderstand! In fact, I really quite like that the author didn't pain her in some kind of perfect light. No, Nelah makes plenty of mistakes, some choices that I didn't understand or agree with. But at the root of it is that she is treated inhumanely for simply existing as a woman in this world.

Add to it all, Nelah has to save her own life and the life of her unborn child from this entity that is seeking vengeance. But what will the cost be? Can she even begin to do that with her controlling, abusive husband running interference? Can she trust anyone? There are so many great questions and mysteries to be answered along with the commentary.

What I Struggled With:

The ghost part was a bit hard for me to wrap my head around, honestly. I did begin to understand a bit more as it went along, but I did have some trouble with it for a bit. Also a bit difficult for me was the ending, which obviously I won't speak of, except to say that I did have a bit of trouble following it at times. That said, it is still worth the story, and while I didn't totally grasp what was happening at every turn, I grasped enough to make the whole thing satisfying enough.

Bottom Line: A brutal but thought provoking book that covers a range of important topics, with quite a mystery to boot.

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight