I don’t know if it’s because this story is told in 1 st POV and it’s such a heavy subject that it doesn’t work? I don’t know.

Whilst I liked Paige, I felt like she fell just a little flat. They are both sent to a Borstal for retraining.

Our main character, Paige, is caught making out with a girl at a party with her brother Easton. Yet, it was still such a good and important story. It brought me down and dealing with depression just made it worse. I couldn’t binge read it because most of the time, it got too heavy. It was such a heavy story that it took me such a long time to read. If they fail to change… the get sent to the Void, a place where no-one comes back from. Any teen who breaks the law gets sent here for electroshock treatment – to try and fix them so they can be released back into society. Set in a dysoptian America (now called Liberty), there are prisons just under eighteen-year-olds. Without thinking twice, I bought the book. She warned that this would be darker, grittier than anything she had written before but after Donald Trump was elected… well… she felt it necessary to publish. So, when she finally reappeared on Twitter to announce the release of her new book, I was thrilled. A lesbian Hades/Persephone retelling written by a lesbian? It was everything I didn’t realise I needed to know. She was my first introduction to the world of f/f fiction (nearly all the f/f books I have shelved are books I found through her and the lists she features on) and also my first introduction to #ownvoices, before I even knew what #ownvoices was! I was just amazed. I have been aware of Sarah Diemer ever since I read “ The Dark Wife” by her.

When Easton is falsely accused by a tormentor–and sentenced to the Void–Piper dares a desperate, and almost fatal, escape, beginning a journey across Liberty to chase after Easton in the hopes of saving his life…without losing hers. They and all of the other queer kids at the party are immediately shipped to the Borstal–which proves to be even worse than the whispered rumors had predicted. And no one ever returns from the Void.ĭespite their caution, a freak Enforcer raid on an illegal party catches Piper and Easton by surprise. Their parents raised them with the knowledge that if they ever give themselves away, they’ll be sent to the Borstal, a dilapidated prison where deviant children–Recreants–undergo brutal treatments to cure them of their “sins.” By command of Liberty’s leader, Voice Wright, if the Recreants fail to be cured, or are ever caught committing another sinful act, they are sent to the Void. She lives it.>Īdopted siblings Piper and Easton aren’t careless. Imagine a future America where being gay is punishable by death.

The dark wife by sarah diemer