Clocks are vaginas.

I personally thought that was pretty interesting, liguistically, but thought I should give fair warning to anyone who's wondering "what are red clocks?" Answer: they're vaginas. Or maybe "wombs" is more accurate.

In this refreshingly female-focused speculative fiction universe, the Personhood Amendment has been added to the Constitution, outlawing abortion and IVF. A new Every Child Needs Two law is on the horizon, which would prohibit singles from adopting.

The book stays in third person perspective, but rotates its lens among several women, focusing on one at a time. The Biographer is a single high-school teacher who desperately wants to get pregnant, and is also writing a biography of a (fictional, I think) female Icelandic polar explorer. (The snippets of this biography, with its meditations on pack ice and proto-feminism, are probably my favorite parts of the book.) The Mender is a traditional herbalist who lives in the woods. The Wife is exactly that, a bored housewife wondering what else she could be doing with her life. Her daughter is The Daughter, a high-school student whose close friend was one of the first women to violate the Personhood Amendment.

There are men in the narrative: the principal of the school where the biographer teaches and the daughter attends, and where the wife's husband also teaches; the mender has a special friend who comes by regularly; and the daughter has a mad crush on a boy her age. But with the exception of the mender's special friend, these men are all jackasses who barely seem to recognize that the women in their lives have needs, have desires, have agency... that they are persons, fully developed. That (not entirely unexpectedly) throws the backdrop of the Personhood Amendment into sharp and purposeful relief.

This is not a subtle narrative, but it is nonetheless a believable one. The people content to live in a world where individual women's needs and desires are subjugated to political/male commandments are, it turns out, pretty familiar. And that's the most shocking thing about Red Clocks: it shows us a potential future that, when you get right down to it, isn't shocking at all.

Chilling book and more plausible than not. I didn't love/get the lagniappes (that isn't the right word; what is it?) before the biographer's chapters (I get what they were just not, really, why) but the rest incredibly powerful and a warning for what will happen if we aren't all vigilant.

Yet another one of those female authored female centric dystopias. Not really my favorite and yet their sheer ubiquity, my love for dystopias and some other inexplicable reasons make me continue checking them out. In all fairness, this is barely a dystopia, in fact the setting seems frighteningly realistic in the modern political climate. Just an amendment or two to make an already conservative leaning country into one that uses religion to reinstate their narrow view of a family by controlling reproductive rights. So fetuses are given rights, women are deprived of rights and the world goes on spinning. And in this world there are several female characters who are all affected by these changes in various ways…the main protagonist, Biographer, a woman virtually deafened to the world by her biological clock and desperately trying to get pregnant, a young girl who is pregnant and doesn’t want to be, a married mother of two tired of her life and so on. There’s also an underlying story of a childless and totally ok with it female polar explorer from the 1800s that the biographer is trying to shape into a book. So it’s all about reproduction. Yet again. How frustratingly unoriginal. Surely there is a female author somewhere who can put out a dystopia that isn’t entirely revolved around babies. I actually have a label for these sorts of books, which my dearly beloved assures me is too crude for public usage, but this book is so strategically and consistently structured around a vagina, that it’s nearly impossible not to at least think it. In fact it is specifically Zumas’ hyper realistic viscerality (visceralness? one of these) that was the major detractor for me with this book. And I can’t imagine it’ll have much of a male audience, but one doesn’t want to be accused of sexism in this day and age, so moving on…The best thing about reading this one was all the reviews I’ve read of it, they have lowered my expectations so significantly that actually this ended up surprisingly decent. The reviews warned of disjointedness, multiple storylines that alternated all too often and took too long to cohere and so on, but really none of that affected the book’s readability and the writing itself (aside from some gruesome anatomy) was quite good. And yes, the subject is very important and very relevant and it should be discussed and written and talked about, but after a while it’s kind of like when you have a friend who used to talk about all sorts of interesting things and then they reproduced and now you have to constantly listen to them go on about their baby and look the countless baby photos and it’s baby this and baby that and you just want something…different already. But anyway, if you’re in the mood for this sort of thing, this uterus lining bound cautionary tale, go for it. It has its moments. Thanks Netgalley.

I really wanted to love this book, it has everything I would want in a book. However, sadly I just couldn't get into it. I found myself confused at times with the names and people. I will take some time away from the book and hopefully, I will come back and revisit this read.

Red Clocks, by Leni Zumas
Zumas interweaves the stories of five women throughout Red Clocks, revealing slowly, how they are connected. There will be much comparison to Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and The Power, but Zumas’s novel is set in a political climate much like today and is based on legislation actually proposed by many of our current politicians. There are no bizarre religious ceremonies, as found in the Handmaids Tale; no magical abilities like those found in Alderman’s The Power. Zumas’s future world feels very real and imminent. Congress has passed the Personhood Amendment establishing rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo; outlawed in-vitro fertilization; ‘Every Child Needs Two’ prevents adoption by single parents; Roe vs. Wade has been abolished; and a “pink” wall exists now between Canada and the states, subjecting young women traveling north to submit to a pregnancy test causing violators, teens as young as 13 to be imprisoned.
The structure of Red Clocks is separated into the voices of the five central characters, The Biographer (Ro) high school teacher and author; The Mender (Gin) a homeopathic healer; The Daughter (Mattie) adopted teen; The Wife (Susan) a young mother trapped in an unhappy marriage; and The Explorer (Eivor) a 19th century polar ice expert, whose biography Ro is writing. Red Clocks addresses the serious issues of women’s rights, identity, motherhood, and infertility. Zumas is certainly encapsulating and enlarging the current discussion American culture is debating. Zumas’s story construct is complex and distinctive; readers will be deeply rewarded by the deft storytelling and compelling characters.
A brilliant and important novel that I highly recommended for all.

I struggled a bit with this rating – my feelings fall somewhere between 3 and 4 stars but I rounded up because I ultimately felt that it was an interesting exploration of women’s rights and the impact to life and liberty. Given our current political climate, the various pieces and parts of this novel are particularly scary as they constitute the hopes (and plans) of many conservatives in America. This is a dystopian novel that posits a world where abortion is illegal, in vitro fertilization is banned and a Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. The story is told through the experiences of five women in one community and how these new realities impact them. I found this book to be rather unsettling – I think that was perhaps because of how close to home this book is to what’s happening politically in America but it also came from the fact that this novel focused so much on the small, day to day aspects of the narrative.

Although I’m glad that I read this novel, it was not a perfect book. The writing style never completely connected with me as a reader. It felt choppy and cloudy in some way. It made it more challenging for me to connect with the women in the novel. But, I was able to overlook some of these aspects given that the rest of the novel really did resonate with me. The one thing that made a huge impression on me is the fact that the effect of complacency had on where the story went – it reinforced the need for political commitment by all of us. The cautionary tale in this novel is scary – and it should be. We lose when we ignore the signs … when we assume that certain things won’t ever happen. They can and do happen. We need to keep our eye on these cultural and political issues that can impact all of us so much.

I definitely think this book is worth reading but do know that the language and writing style may not connect with you. It’s something I’ve heard from a number of my bookish friends about this book. However, I do think it’s a good book that will remind you how important it is that we engage politically and not just let things happen.

What a wake=up call to women everywhere. This book shattered me, wrecked me, kept me riveted, and resonated with me as a woman on so many levels. Wonderful read!

I picked this book up based on it being a Book of the Month recommendation. The blurb sounded interesting to me as it was a very female-centered book.

The world has changed a bit, and women are living in times where they have to travel out of the country if they want an abortion. They also have to be married if they want to adopt. These changes in the world affect the characters of the novel in different ways. The Biographer wants a baby so badly she can taste it. In her forties and unmarried, artificial insemination isn't working and she's running out of time to adopt. The Wife has two beautiful children with her husband, but she constantly feels like she wants to leave. Things aren't good, and her husband will not go to counseling to work on it. The Daughter is a 15-year-old, scared and pregnant, trying to figure out how she can get an abortion without getting arrested. The Mender does her best to help women with any gynecological needs, using unorthodox methods. Often referred to as a witch, The Mender uses her oils and herbs to take care of anything that women need under the radar.

All of these lives intertwine in this book. It was a very interesting read, sometimes difficult because of the struggles these women are facing and the choices they have to make. I definitely recommend.

I was so excited to read this and am so disappointed by it. I couldn't get into it enough to finish it and I can power through most books. I did not enjoy the writing style and thought it was just trying too hard to be the next Handmaid's Tale.

I really enjoyed Red Clocks. I was skeptical at first based on the description. I expected a kind of rip-off of "The Handmaid's Tale" with more value-signaling and allegory than plot and character development. After seeing great reviews, I started reading it. I was immediately drawn in by the writing style and the way the book is organized. The story is told by four different female narrators with the biography of an historical Arctic explorer (also a woman) interspersed between their chapters. Through the four women, we get a complete view of the paths women can choose to take in regards to childbearing and the impact the new Personhood Amendment (banning abortion and IVF) and the impending Every Child Needs Two law (banning single people from adoption) have on women. I got worried about two thirds of the way in that I was reading a dystopian version of "Juno", but my concerns were unfounded and I was happy with the ending.

After a month of struggling to get into the book, I am sadly putting this on my DNF "shelf". I found the formatting choppy and confusing - stopping ever few pages to wonder why the author chose to write it the way that she did. Perhaps I haven't gotten to the meat of it just yet? I put down the book after about 18% into the story (what my kindle said) but it was a whole month of stressing out about it (and falling asleep to it). It is unfortunate because I believe the book to be relevant to present day issues, but felt it could have been told in a more straightforward manner. Currently, not for me , but someday I may return to it.

I don’t read much fiction at all but I made the exception for this book. It is incredible and in the same vein as Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, uses fiction as the landscape upon which to plant seeds that invite further discussion of key issues related to women’s rights and feminism. My hope is that this book makes its way into English Lit classes at post-secondary institutions and for the educators who dare, Writer’s Craft and English classrooms for Grade 12 students. Can’t recommend this enough!

***Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review ***

3.5 stars Red Clocks is beautifully written and extremely relevant. I felt more of a connection with some voices than others. Although, I loved the writing and message, the book was a little too trippy/ artsy fartsy at times for more personal taste.

Fully formatted review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2064184706?book_show_action=false

“If wrecked in this vessel, we wreck together.”

Four women navigate their lives while laws protecting reproductive rights are being dismantled. Their options are running out, both biologically and legally.

The scenario is realistic. Changes to the USA's laws didn't happen overnight; there was a slow creep of federal restrictions. Women’s health clinics close because they can’t afford to make federally-mandated renovations. Second-trimester abortions are banned in all cases. Doctors must attempt to convince women going in for first-trimester abortions to change their minds. (Much of this is reminiscent of Texas's House Bill 2 passed in 2013, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court. Other restrictions remain.) Not too long after, "a fringe idea, a farce” becomes a reality. Congress enacts the Personhood Amendment, which gives the "constitutional right to life, liberty, and property to a fertilized egg at the moment of conception.” By the time we meet the four women in this novel, the Personhood Amendment and the laws that followed it have restricted reproductive rights in a number of ways:
• Abortion is prohibited in all fifty states
• In vitro fertilization is federally banned
• Women who miscarry must pay for funerals
• Abortion providers and Women who seek abortions can face criminal charges
• Only married couples are allowed to adopt children. 
Suddenly, a broad segment of the population—both people who want to be parents and those who don't—have criminal inclinations or are treated like second-class citizens.

Red Clocks follows four women in different stages of life. It also includes excerpts from one character's writing on a nineteenth-century woman who was dedicated scientist despite the hurdles she faced. The modern women all have different roles in life, but the one they grapple with most is mother. I liked the contrast between the biographer and the daughter the most. The mother's chapters were my least favorite. I had trouble with the writing style, so not knowing how the characters were connected or their names was a source of frustration for me(especially with the mother). The wait for answers didn't give me any great thrill, so I'm going to divulge how they're connected. Once I saw how all the characters related to each other, I was more emotionally involved.
THE BIOGRAPHER (Ro) - A 42-year-old unmarried high school teacher who desperately wants a child, but her time is running out.
THE DAUGHTER (Mattie) A 15-year-old girl with a bright future ahead of her. Mattie was adopted and often daydreams about her maternal lineage. Now she’s pregnant and is seeking an abortion. There are no safe options and the weeks are passing by quickly. She's one of Ro's students.
THE MENDER (Gin) -A natural healer who's confronted with an interesting dilemma. Her practice in natural medicine makes her a source of suspicion in the community and she becomes the victim of a modern-day witch hunt. As a teen Gin gave a baby up for adoption, but she's still curious about the child.
THE MOTHER - Susan is a frustrated stay-at-home mom trapped in an unhappy marriage with an obnoxious husband. She was in law school when she became pregnant with her first child. She chose to fully immerse herself in motherhood, but now she's overwhelmed and needs a break. While the laws were changing, she was focused on her own life. When her husband Didier told his child to “Use your NPR voice, chouchou,” I knew this family was going to irritate me for the rest of the story! ;) Didier works with Ro. Ro and Susan resent each other.
Eivør Mínervudottír is a nineteenth-century polar hydrologist who made revolutionary discoveries in the field and the subject of Ro/The Biographer's research. Despite the centuries between Mínervudottír and the women in the story, there are parallels between their lives. (Freezer aunt made my skin crawl, so I liked it when her reason for being clicked for me!)

Ro's story resonated with me the most. It reminded me of one of the most touching episodes How I Met Your Mother, when a character who never wanted children discovers that she's infertile. What she thought was her choice was never actually in her future and she grieves that choice being taken away from her. Ro never wanted children in her most fertile years, but now she's in a rush to conceive as her body and the law are about to take her options away. What causes a previously content person to suddenly be wanting? Is it a true yearning, a biological phenomenon, influence from society's demands, or all of the above? I had a panicky "OMG MY BODY IS DISINTEGRATING" moment the second I turned 35. As people I knew when they were babies begin having their own babies, I've often wondered if I've "justified my existence" on this planet. It was interesting and cathartic for me to witness Ro wrestle with these issues. (I read Baby Teeth next and that knocked any vestiges of existential crisis out of my head!)

There are so many rage-inducing scenes, both because of what these women have to deal with from the outside world and how they deal with each other. Sometimes it's the smallest incidents that make me the angriest. In one part, Mínervudottír makes an important observation about the ice and the captain dismissively responds, “And will you be pointing out the snow fairies too?” A few pages later, the sailors see narwhals and start unironically yelling about "unicorns." At another point, Ro asks the doctor about a condition that might be preventing her from getting pregnant. He's dismissive of the idea, but agrees to test her—then acts like it was his idea all along when the results come in! Ro also likes to make lists and one of the most emotional ones is "Accusations from the World," where she details all the baggage society saddles her with because of her personal choices.


As meaningful as many of the section were for me, I couldn't break past the surface of the story and feel connected to the characters.
• The writing style is choppy and wordplay frustrates me. It’s not bad, but it's not a style I enjoy reading. The style makes the greater message cloudy.
• I also have a hard time connecting with characters who seem to exist in a piece of performance art, like a scene where Susan artfully burns chicken breasts.
• Gross descriptions of body parts and fluids - Of all the things I have the stomach to read about, it's descriptions of body fluids and hair that make me retch. It's even more noticeable when I'm not enjoying the story! I'm fine with a few scenes (White Bodies), but it makes my skin crawl when it's threaded throughout the whole book: wet "scabbards," "glistening" fingers, and SO MUCH pubic hair. (Helpful hint: If you have similar issues, avoid the movie Don't Breathe! I still gag thinking about it!)
• It didn't make me more empathetic towards anyone who I didn't already feel empathy for. If you have a bad feeling about this book after reading the description, you'll probably have the same feeling at the end.

Messages to think about:
• The effects of complacency and selfishness- So many of the events in this story happened because most weren't paying attention or weren't thinking beyond themselves. It shows the importance of political engagement and meaningful action.
• Resentments against others are sometimes more about things that are lacking in ourselves. Ro resents Susan's perfect life. Susan resents Ro's professional aspirations and other mothers. These characters should be on the same side, but they demean and sabotage each other instead. One of the bright spots is Ro's supportive friend Penny who lives her life the way she wants with no apologies. 
• "It was never yours." - One character comes to the painful realization that some things don't belong to her no matter how badly she wants them. Other characters realize that their children are individuals and not just an extension of their parents: "The girl is continuing herself."
• "Why could I stand to see the whales killed, but not the lambs?" - What makes us value one form of life over another? This question is interesting from many angles and extends beyond the issue of reproductive rights.
• "She did not leave behind money or property or a book or a child, but her corpse kept alive creatures who, in turn, kept other creatures alive. Into other bodies she went, but also other brains." - There are multiple ways our legacy lives on, not just through the act of having children.

The overarching story is a cautionary tale about the things that happen when we're not looking. Through the lens of this fictional world, we're meant to see a glimpse of the real world. There are protests and celebrations as the new laws are enacted, but most people have retreated into their own lives. When most are complacent, the few have the power to make the decisions for the many. As a history teacher, Ro knows "how many horrors are legitimated in public daylight, against the will of most of the people." There are often instances in history where the majority opinion in the United States is out of line with the ruling party's platform. Infighting between those in those in the majority further decreases their voting power. In Dead Center, former congressman Jason Altmire writes about how all but the extremes have disengaged from politics. What does this mean for the country's future? Whatever happens, we all have to deal with the consequences— sometimes in ways we didn't anticipate.

On the personal level, these women have found themselves in unexpected situations. There are wide gaps between where they are and where they want to be, but also who they are and what's expected of them. Regardless of the choices they make, judgments and accusations wait around every corner. Will these women be able to shed society's judgments and forge their own path? Will being confronted with the consequences of the new laws awaken their sense of purpose and their duty to their fellow citizens? Red Clocks acts as both a call to action and a mirror to self. It's a thought-provoking novel that evoked strong emotions, but I just couldn't climb the wall between me and the characters.

Red Clocks, by Leni Zumas, is a haunting, chilling tale about what could happen to women's reproductive rights. It's told through the eyes of five characters (one of whom is a 19th-century polar explorer), and explores a fictional future in which abortion, single-parent adoption and in-vitro fertilization have been outlawed. I've seen it described as a "cautionary work," which seems true. I'm still digesting my feelings about this book. It's very well-written, with fully-realized characters, with political themes that will disturb some readers.

This is probably the scariest book I've ever read. It feels incredibly plausible---obviously abortion is an issue that people feel very strongly about, but I've also heard people say that in vitro fertilization is wrong. I'm sure there are some who would be happy to see it banned, along with single mothers being able to adopt children. (It must be nice to have so much free time to devote to obsessing how other people live their life, right?)

This is similar to the Handmaid's Tale, but whereas that felt like an only vaguely possible alternate reality, this feels like something we're headed toward---and I find that terrifying. The idea that only certain people should be allowed to have children and that everyone who ends up pregnant should be forced to carry that child to term, regardless of that woman's own thoughts about it...it can clearly lead to disaster. And we see in this book exactly what that DOES lead to.

This is not likely to change anyone's mind, but it is still incredibly important. I'll sit with these characters for a long time.  Highly recommended.

I enjoyed Zumas's writing so much. The characters were well developed and perfect in how they were connected. It's a wonderful piece of fiction that brings womanhood to the forefront.

Read the full review at http://www.karlajstrand.com/2018/01/27/a-review-of-red-clocks-by-leni-zumas/ !

What do a polar explorer, a teenage girl, an aging teacher and writer, an unfulfilled wife and mother, and an eccentric healer have in common? A lot, surprisingly enough. Their intertwining experiences are calculatingly uncovered in Red Clocks, the third book by Leni Zumas.

I say “calculatingly” because the uncovering of the relationships felt just as deliberate as the development of the individual characters themselves. On both counts, I was puzzled at first, trying to figure out what these seemingly disparate characters have to do with one another and what story Zumas was trying to tell through them. But it didn’t take long before all the pieces fell into place to make a mosaic of women’s lives that was poignant and honest. Zumas is unafraid to shine a light on the imperfections and complexities of women’s inner voices and relationships.

Zumas masterfully switches voices among the four main characters, who are referred to in chapter headings as The Daughter, The Biographer, The Wife, and The Mender. I appreciated the statement Zumas makes by referring to them by these labels, as so often women are relegated to simple characterizations that do not represent the depth and fullness of our lives.

So adept is Zumas at identifying the unique voices of her characters, that the reader is taken inside their thoughts, is privy to their secrets, and bears witness to the repetitive and often destructive tapes that most women have playing incessantly inside their heads. The characters really come to life and more than once or twice reminded me of my own inner critic, especially The Biographer.
...
In the end, I found Red Clocks a call to action. “They started talking about this thing called the Personhood Amendment, which for years has been a fringe idea, a farce.” This is how these things can happen, right? We think that the threat will never actualize and we become complacent. We stop being shocked, we don’t take the threats seriously, we stop fighting, and we stop supporting one another. Red Clocks may be a work of fiction but its messages hit much too close to home to ignore. While each of us is stronger than we think, we are even stronger together. Red Clocks gives us a glimpse into what the near future could be like if we don’t stand together and resist the forces that attempt to disenfranchise and diminish us.

I was very excited by the premise of this story, but unfortunately, it was not for me. I had to put it down at about 25% complete because the writing style did not resonate with me.

I found the “titles” for the characters very interesting, but it made it hard to connect with them. I was spending a lot of time trying to remember who was connected to certain events, which took me out of the story. There were also some passages that I found vulgar or off putting, which also took me out of the world of the story.

I do think the storyline itself was overall interesting, and this could be an excellent read for someone who is more a fan of an experimental writing style.

This is not my usual genre but I heard a lot of buzz and decided to give it a try. I loved it! The story was very relevant in today's times!