The Girl in the Road

by Monica Byrne

Hardcover, 323 pages

English language

Published May 20, 2014 by Crown.

ISBN:: 978-0-8041-3884-0
OCLC Number:: 858246327

(8 reviews)

Stunningly original and wildly inventive, The Girl in the Road melds the influences of Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and Erin Morgenstern for a dazzling debut.

Meena, a young woman living in a futuristic Mumbai, wakes up with five snake bites on her chest. She doesn't know how or why, but she must flee India and return to Ethiopia, the place of her birth. Having long heard about The Trail -- an energy-harvesting bridge that spans the Arabian Sea -- she embarks on foot on this forbidden bridge, with its own subculture and rules. What awaits her in Ethiopia is unclear; she's hoping the journey will illuminate it for her.

Stunningly original and wildly inventive, The Girl in the Road melds the influences of Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and Erin Morgenstern for a dazzling debut.

Mariama, a girl from a different time, is on a quest of her own. After witnessing her mother's rape, she joins up with a caravan of strangers heading across Saharan Africa. She meets Yemaya, a beautiful and enigmatic woman who becomes her protector and confidante. Yemaya tells Mariama of Ethiopia, where revolution is brewing and life will be better. Mariama hopes against hope that it offers much more than Yemaya ever promised.

As one heads east and the other west, Meena and Mariama's fates will entwine in ways that are profoundly moving and shocking to the core. Vividly imagined and artfully told, written with stunning clarity and deep emotion, The Girl in the Road is a true tour de force.

4 editions

cibertina reviewed The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne

Review of 'The Girl in the Road' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is the second book I've read by Byrne and once again, couldn't remotely sleep afterward. I'm not sure what I was expecting but like the Actual Star, this book manages to be optimistic, disturbing and mystical in a way that is fully original. I don't think there is anyone else writing sci-fi like this.

The Girl in the Road is a climate change spec-fic novel with elements of the Odyssey, but that's about as much I can describe the plot because it's totally unhinged. Clearly an incredible amount of research and imagination went into creating the world of this novel, but the plot itself reads more like revealed text, or maybe something straight from a dream. I'm left with so many questions, among which the most important: how did someone think this up?!

patchworkbunny reviewed The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne

Review of 'The Girl in the Road' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I loved Meena’s journey along the Trail, the wave and solar energy generator that links India and Ethiopia. This aspect reminded me a little of Wild; she is prepared equipment-wise but not physically and has a hard time just walking on it to start with. Her goal seems futile, walking across an ocean on an ever moving snake. All the time she muses on her past mistakes and thinks quite a lot about sex.

I really wanted to love The Girl in the Road but I wonder if it suffers from too many ideas. It’s refreshing to read about a future in a non-white-Western culture and there’s an exploration of sexuality and gender in a supposedly forward-thinking India. Yet for much of it I was left a little confused, and every time I started to get into it, I was torn away to another element or moment in time.

I got the feeling from early on that the snake bites, and the snakes themselves, were symbolic. Both girls bitten in the solar plexus which is the manipura chakra, associated with the power of transformation. In Ayurvedic medicine, deficiency in this chakra is related to mental health issues. Early on in the story, Meena attempts suicide and is clearly running away from something. She says Semena Werk were trying to kill her, but there is no evidence of this. She is constantly picking at the scab on her chest, preventing it from healing properly, preventing herself from facing facts and healing mentally.

As the story progresses, we learn about the golden meaning, the true meaning behind the things we say or do. There’s a lot about suppressed memories and truths, both girls motherless and fleeing their pasts.

Mariama’s narrative is more child-like and I found it very hard to connect with her as a character. She runs away from home and stows away on a truck carrying goods to Ethiopia. As she travels across Africa she meets Yemaya, who she looks up to as both a mother figure and a goddess. Yemaya is the name of an African spirit, the spirit of mothers and the ocean, linking together both stories.

Meena’s sexuality is fluid; she addresses her narration to a previous partner, a transgender woman called Mohini. We learn a little about Mohini through flashbacks and it would seem at first that India has become quite accepting of differences gender identity and sexuality. However the world is still full of violence against women. There’s some uncomfortable scenes, one of which has drawn controversy to the book, and it doesn’t sit right with the idea of a society moving on. Why is this something women can't escape?

Review copy provided by publisher.