A gripping story of motherhood and motherloss and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, MADWOMAN marks the arrival of a major fiction talent.

The world is not made for mothers.
Yet mothers made the world…

Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation.

But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As we race between her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced to finally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it ultimately save her?

What a wild, unsettling, and captivating read this was! I picked this from BOTM on a whim, and I am so glad I listened to my instincts. It’s hard to accurately capture the effects that domestic violence can have on those who endure it. It’s a touchy subject, but I feel like the author of this book handles not only the abuse but the psychological effects it has on its survivors very well. This book isn’t easy to read. I was uncomfortable while reading several times but could not look away. I absolutely devoured this one.

The book is told from the perspective of a woman named Clove – someone who has built her life on a foundation of lies. Clove grew up in Hawaii with a loving mother and an unhinged father who physically abused her mother Clove’s entire life. When she was a teenager, something happened that caused Clove to flee Hawaii while her mother was imprisoned for the questionable death of Clove’s father. Clove has put all of that behind her and started a new life, but then one day she receives a letter from her mother asking Clove to help free her. But to do that, Clove would have to untangle the web of lies she’s so carefully constructed and risk losing her comfortable home in Portland, her loving husband, and two kids in the process.

Bieker’s writing is raw and unflinching, delving deep into the dark corners of Clove’s mind and exposing the layers of pain and trauma that have shaped her into the woman she is today. It’s a haunting exploration of memory, trauma from witnessing years of abuse, and how the past can come back to haunt us. Bieker expertly weaves together the present-day struggles of Clove with flashbacks to her childhood in Waikiki, creating a narrative that is hard to read but impossible to look away from.

I love an unreliable narrator, and Clove is a prime example of the type of unreliable narrator that I appreciate. She is complex, layered, and teetering on the verge of completely losing it. While I wanted to reach into the book and make her stop before she could dig herself into a deeper hole, I understood why she did what she did.

Bieker expertly explores how trauma can shape the course of our lives, and how difficult it is to break out of habits that we’ve developed to keep us safe. Clove is in complete survival mode and knows what is at stake. Had I endured the crap that she did growing up and then finally found stability, I, too, would have gone to any lengths imaginable to hold onto it. This was one of the things that compelled me about this book – it was uncomfortable but also extremely realistic.

The book is well-written and fast-paced – I quickly tore through it in a single sitting. I will admit that there is one plot point that made me kind of roll my eyes. There’s a twist toward the end of the book that I couldn’t quite get behind. Did it work? Yeah, kind of, but it seemed a little too convenient and had a few too many holes in its viability for me to totally get behind it. I knocked a half-star off because of it.

Overall, this is a book that I won’t soon forget. Clove is the type of unhinged, unreliable narrator that I love. Her story is heartbreaking, infuriating, and addicting. If you’re looking for a gripping and emotionally resonant read, I would definitely recommend this one, but be sure to check out any trigger warnings. This is not an easy read.

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