Gather the Daughters

 Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed  341 pages

Where Janey Solomon lives, their island of families is isolated but protected from the outside country, where everything was incinerated to wasteland. Years before, 10 men and their families colonized the island and their radical society built on ancestor worship, controlled breeding and strict rationing of knowledge has kept them safe. The daughters of men are wives-in-training and at the first sign of puberty, face their "Summer of Fruition," after which they marry. They have children and the cycle keeps repeating.  The only freedom they have is during the summer, where children run free and reign supreme on the island. However, something dark and nasty is happening and when one little girl sees something absolutely horrifying and contradictory to the laws of the island, things start to unravel for everyone. Janey Solomon has been holding off her fruition by starving herself and at 17, is a natural leader. Burning to discover the truth, Janey is desperate to save herself and her sister, attempting to lead an uprising of girls that may have deadly consequences.

I liked this book, but there are some things hinted at here that are truly quite unpleasant. In fact, the entire story is unpleasant --- which is okay, but be prepared to be disturbed. The ideas here are what makes it interesting --- for example, is there really an outside world that has been incinerated? Was the purpose of the original 10 men to really protect their families or to develop a society that has some really nasty things that are normalized?  There are some questions here without answers, but that just means that the story makes you think about it after you have finished the last page. Definitely an interesting book, although I don't know if I'd re-read it.