Steen Christiansen reviewed An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
Review of 'An Untamed State' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Brutal and unrelenting and thankfully without a sappy ending.
Published May 6, 2014 by Grove Press.
An Untamed State
by Roxane Gay
3 stars
(7 reviews)
unicorndeburgh reviewed An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
Review of 'An Untamed State' on 'Goodreads'
I saw Roxane Gay speak at a lecture series, and concluded that this was someone I wanted to follow on twitter and read everything they wrote. I read her book of short stories, Difficult Women, first, thought it was excellent, and moved on to this novel.
It's well written and compelling -- I finished it at 2am this morning. The kidnapping, confinement, rape and torture are tough to take, but I still couldn't put it down. It's not just about the physical, but about how she emotionally and intellectually copes, and breaks. The characters are vivid. I liked that the protagonist, who you're pulling for, is not really an amiable person. I loved the relationship between her and her prickly mother-in-law. My god, those two women could take over the world, if they had any interest in that sort of thing. The action takes place in both Haiti and rural …
I saw Roxane Gay speak at a lecture series, and concluded that this was someone I wanted to follow on twitter and read everything they wrote. I read her book of short stories, Difficult Women, first, thought it was excellent, and moved on to this novel.
It's well written and compelling -- I finished it at 2am this morning. The kidnapping, confinement, rape and torture are tough to take, but I still couldn't put it down. It's not just about the physical, but about how she emotionally and intellectually copes, and breaks. The characters are vivid. I liked that the protagonist, who you're pulling for, is not really an amiable person. I loved the relationship between her and her prickly mother-in-law. My god, those two women could take over the world, if they had any interest in that sort of thing. The action takes place in both Haiti and rural America, which is a wide range and interesting.
