The premise hooked me: a California cult, with followers desperate for even the most misguided hope and leadership during a drought, a broken mother-daughter relationship, and elements of misogyny, battle for control of the self, and the strong female fighting spirit.

But each detail was more over the top than the last. Because of that I found this book difficult to read because so much of it felt implausible, yet the tone was not farcical or campy. Gold glitter rains down on the congregation during the low-tech church services (no one looks up to see the leader's daughter doing this until the main protagonist peers up, late in the book); the bible is rewritten with the cult leader Vern's name in place of Jesus', the congregation is forbidden from securing food or supplies from neighboring towns, so rather than water they only drink (and baptize in) soda. I don't doubt that people exhibit blind faith and are willing to go to extremes, and that this is especially possible during times of desperation, but the presentation of each element of Vern's rule and followers and community made them feel distracting and unlikely.

Not to mention the various sinister cartoonlike quirks of the dangerously faulted grandmother: Cherry collects and plays with taxidermied animals that she dresses up, *and* she has her granddaughter continually follow through with revolting hygiene tasks such as removing all the hair from her body, *and* she covers her bald head with jelly and soda.

The pacing felt uneven, and the strongest and most cohesive part of the story was toward the end, with a search and some resolution, strong female characters, and a cobbled-together family of sorts that seems destined to succeed.

Catapult and NetGalley provided me with an advance publication copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cult America is alive and well. Many worship politicians without ever engaging in critical thinking. Perhaps they do so just to feel safe. In GODSHOT, Bieker explores how and why people believe in things that make no sense and are not in the best interests of those who believe in them. But it is also a wonderful novel about a young person trying to find her way in the world, especially when the information she has been given about the world is inaccurate. Really, really interesting!

This is the best book I've read so far in 2020. For readers who loved Rachel Kushner's THE MARS ROOM, here is another gem of a novel with gorgeous prose and a complex female protagonist, someone you will root for and worry about. The tactics of religious manipulation and systematic assault in this cult community were handled with compassion and nuance. This is a complicated story about mothers and daughters and the grief of learning to recognize one's own capacity for agency and independence despite longing to be saved. A riveting read, hard to put down.

This novel takes you on an emotional rollercoaster in the life of 14-year-old Lacey May. After her mother abandons her in a cult, Lacey May must deal with the fallout. The cult's leader has a plan to end the drought that has fallen on the rural California town and his plan involves the young girls, including Lacey May. You will feel deeply for Lacey as you follow her journey after being "godshot" and dealing with her doubts and feeling of being stuck.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

"Abandoned and distraught, Lacey May moves in with her widowed grandma, Cherry, who is more concerned with her taxidermy mice collection than her own granddaughter. As Lacey May endures the increasingly appalling acts of men who want to write all the rules, and begins to uncover the full extent of Pastor Vern’s shocking plan to bring fertility back to the land, she decides she must go on a quest to find her mother, no matter what it takes."

Good story.

4☆

Hard to believe this is a debut novel as the writing and content are so well done. It isn't often you read a book you are unable to put down but this was one of those books. Highly recommend!

Chelsea Bieker's book Godshot is a coming-of-age tale like no other. Fifteen-year-old Lacey May lives in the town of Peaches, in California's Central Valley, a town dying in the grip of drought and a cult leader whose neck I guarantee you'll want to wring with your own bare hands. The injustices and violence visited on Lacey May will make your heart burn with rage, but Bieker has created a character of true grit, and Lacey May's awakening to her circumstances—and the resulting choices and revelations—make this book a page turner.

Very impressive debut novel. The main character, Lacey, lives with her mother in a drought ridden California town where the main industry of farming has died because of the terrible drought. The town is basically a cult which is run by "pastor" Vern who has his own plan and radical ideas and an more seemingly outlandish plan for his people. They all follow him and carry out his "assignments" which get more crazy as the book progresses. Lacey's mom fall's off the wagon and abandons her for a TV career (or so she thinks). Lacey ends up living with her very eccentric grandmother who has a collection of stuffed rodents that she dresses up like dolls. Needless to say, not the best place for Lacey to live. As Vern's plans unfold, Lacey is caught in a situation that she is unprepared for and has to grow up really fast without a mother to guide her. She manages to find one safe haven at the phone sex business in town, run by a compassionate mother with a teen daughter. This book really picked up speed and got to the point where I couldn't put it down. Lacey deals with her situation with her intelligence, a little bit of common sense, grace and resiliency and the kindness of others who she meets as she grows up quickly in a radical situation. Fabulous book with amazing writing! thanks to NG for the ARC!!!

This is a book everyone will be talking about. I really enjoyed it and the motley cast of characters. It is Flannery O'Connor with a dash of Carl Haissan but in draught affected California instead of the humid south. Not the type of boom I normally read because I’m drawn to thrillers and horror but this was really great.

I'm a sucker for a cult memoir, and while this is a work of fiction, it's an interesting and plausible tale of what happens when people put all their faith in someone who does not at all deserve it.

I have not enjoyed a book this much in a long time! Hard to believe it is a debut! Sad, awful, heart-wrenching, beautiful, all these and more.

I requested this book from NetGalley because it has an eye-popping cover - I love the gold sparkles! However, it definitely proved (once again) that you shouldn't judge a book based on it's cover. This cover-buy was a fail for me, unfortunately. It is a cult story, which typically aren't my thing, and this was no exception. I also ended up skimming a majority of it just to get through so I could review it.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

As much as I wanted to love and enjoy this one, I didn't. I'd high hopes, but there was another review I read saying that if it's not a page turner, they tune out. I typically follow along the same lines. It doesn't have to be a thriller or anything fast-paced, but I find that if I'm not eager to get to the next page, I'm losing interest. That was Godshot to me. Plenty of people on Netgalley have raved about it, and sometimes a book, no matter how many people love it, just isn't for me.

The writing is almost poetry, but to me, the story wasn't.

Godshot comes out 4.17.2020.

3/5 Stars

Thank you to Catapult for an ARC of this book. This is a beautifully written coming of age story about a young girl in a drought-stricken small town in rural California. Abandoned by her mother, living with her grandmother, Lacey's life centers around a cult-like church whose leader promises relief from the drought in exchange for unquestioning devotion. While she struggles to find her mother, she's drawn deeper into the clutches of the cult. She finds unlikely solace with a phone sex worker and her daughter, who may provide her with the answers she seeks. By turns suspenseful and moving, I'm still thinking about it days after finishing it.

I picked this book up because I love books about cults. If that is your reason for picking it up, that is the wrong reason, BUT it is a wonderful book, just not about cults in the way I thought it might be. It is about so much more. It brought tears to my eyes at the end, and that makes it a 5 star read for me.

For this first 100 pages of this one, I wasn't sure where it was going and I wasn't sure if I liked it. It seemed very sexually driven and sexually centered around young girls. Honestly i shouldn't have been surprised it's a book about cults and cults do sometimes tend to sexually driven. Normally sex with a minor is a no go for me, I'll throw the book down right then. But I kept picking this one up and I kept wanting to read on. And overall, I'm really glad I did. The last 100 pages were like a whole different book and I don't want want to say too much here. I don't want to ruin the rest give readers an expectation of where the book is heading, but it ends with a book hangover.

What I was reading repulsed me but I could not put down Chelsea Bieker's debut novel Godshot. Lacey's narrative voice drew me in, her conflicted nativity and faith struggling to survive as her family and community fails to protect her. The novel reaches into the deepest questions of life and illustrates the limitations of love and faith.

The tragic series of events and abuse endured will be hard for some to follow; this is a dark story. But just when it seems that Lacey has lost everything, including control over her own life, she finds salvation.

Drought has hit the town of Peaches, the orchards turned to dust. Pastor Vern finds the community ripe for hope and promises to deliver rain if they believe in him. Isolating the community from the world, believers allow him total control.

Pastor Vern brings good to some. Lacey's mother found strength to overcome her alcoholism. Pastor Vern also destroys as he wields his total power. His plan to create a perfected church involves assignments, special purposes that believers long to be given. They want to be Godshot. Lacey's mother's assignment takes her on a downward spiral until she abandons Lacey to run off with a man filled with false promises.

Lacey is taken in by her grandmother, one of Pastor Vern's unthinking believers. Lacey desperately misses her mother and endeavors to track her down, her search to learn taking her into the world beyond the Godshot.

Lacey's assignment begins her journey of doubt. Would God require such things?

The novel touches on so many hot-button issues relating to the social status and role of women, the persistence of human hope placed in unreliable leaders, the love of a child for her mother, and the awakening of a young woman to see beyond her communities teachings.

Lacey's journey from darkness into light, from powerlessness to self-determination comes to a satisfying conclusion.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

This story of a fourteen year old girl, whose mother involved her in a religious cult, is realistic and heartbreaking. Lacey is sharp and can think pretty well for herself. She realizes her mother’s drunken behavior is wrong. This is one of those sad times, when the child must become the adult as Lacey tries her best to protect her mother from herself.

Ultimately, Lacey’s mother takes off with a stranger and Lacey is left with her weird grandmother. And while Lacey is smart girl, she seems to believe that obeying the creepy cult leader is a good thing. While he is busy coming up with “assignments” for his followers to carry out, Lacey is actually excited about, and looking forward to, receiving her assignment.

Due to the grim subject matter, Godshot was a difficult read for me. If not for the author’s expertise in dealing with the serious subject matter of feminist issues, including with the oppression and appalling violation of women, I may not have made it through this expertly written story.

This is very good, and the many existing reviews will tell you as much. So I'll just recommend it to literary fiction fans.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

An extraordinary debut that is both gritty and compassionate. Bieker evokes the terrible ravished beauty of the Central Valley so vivdly you can feel the sun bake your skin, and characters are fresh and nuanced. It's also so much more than a coming-of-age story, with themes of pseudo-religion, partiarchy, motherhood, and human longing. It's unsettling and gorgeous; just read it!