The blurbs on book jackets aren't usually interesting or trustworthy, but the ones on the hardback edition of [a:Lauren Groff|690619|Lauren Groff|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1330389831p2/690619.jpg]'s [b:Matrix|57185348|Matrix|Lauren Groff|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617287438l/57185348.SY75.jpg|87447766], which refer to earlier works, defined the writing in this book for me:

"Groff is an original writer, whose books are daringly nonconformist....The prose is not only beautiful and vigorously alert; it insists on its own heroic registration." —The New Yorker

"Groff's command of allusions, imagery, and the puzzle pieces of her characters and plot thrill."
—The Boston Globe

 (If I used a phrase like "vigorously alert" everyone would call me a pretentious jerk and they'd be right to do so.)
 It would help in reading this is you had some knowledge of church words used in 1200 A.D. and what was going on between England and France at that time, but there're no holes you can't fill with a few online searches and even if you don't bother, you'll know what's going on.
 Throughout the book, which is about an abbey, Groff makes no direct reference to the male sex. He, his, him, man, men, boy, boys, fellas. Those words are not used even once, even when talking about animals. This kind of thing verges on stunt writing, like [a:Ernest Vincent Wright|682865|Ernest Vincent Wright|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1371286964p2/682865.jpg]'s [b:Gadsby|1454666|Gadsby|Ernest Vincent Wright|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1234140401l/1454666.SX50.jpg|1445436] and [a:Gilbert Adair|15924|Gilbert Adair|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1244793381p2/15924.jpg]'s [b:A Void|28294|A Void|Georges Perec|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388699493l/28294.SY75.jpg|2310135], translation of [a:Georges Perec|15923|Georges Perec|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615651252p2/15923.jpg]'s [b:La Disparition|28336|La Disparition|Georges Perec|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1416833332l/28336.SY75.jpg|2310135], none of which use the letter "e," the most common letter in English, but it works.
 There are a few sex scenes, which made me think briefly of lesbian pulp fiction from the 1950s, but that's just me being silly.
 Villeinesses are serfs, sort of.

 Marie is thirty-eight.
 There has been trouble among the villeinesses, and come summer, three of the unmarried women are swelling at the belly like rosehips. They are not nuns, true, they are not sworn to virginity, but Marie feels shame that she cannot control these bodies under her care, what the larger world would think of the abbey if they knew. Great scandal. She would be removed as prioress. Thank goodness she has trained her superiors well with her flattery and competency, they are never here at the abbey any longer to oversee. She speaks to Goda, who explains to her some finer points of procreation by use of animal metaphors, the moment exactly at which children ripen to adults. At last, she has the whole community, over fifty nuns and eighty-one others, gather beyond the garden.