Daughters of the North
A Novel
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3.6 • 64 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
From Booker and Orange Prize-nominated author Sarah Hall comes the tale of an imaginary England, a future dystopian society where the right to bear a child is determined by a state lottery system.
In this stunning novel Sarah Hall draws on the work of Margaret Atwood and George Orwell to imagine a dystopic England where terrifying new systems of control are in place and reproduction has become a lottery. When a girl known only as “Sister” escapes the confines of her increasingly repressive marriage to find an isolated group of women living on a remote northern farm, she must find out whether she has it in herself to become an active insurgent.
This fascinating novel considers what lengths women will go to in a brutalized world in order to resist their oppressors, what tactics they must employ to survive and remain free. But the story asks a wider and more difficult question: under what circumstances might an ordinary person become a terrorist?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chronicling a journey of violence, oppression and fleeting liberation, this brutal third novel from the author of The Electric Michelangelo is a timely feminist commentary on war, gender, politics and identity. Set in a dystopian near-future northern U.K. where global warming, a fuel crisis, drug epidemics and a cruel totalitarian regime known as the Authority have savaged the land and people, the story is told by Sister, a young woman living in cramped terrace quarters. Sterilized against her will (the result of the Authority's female sterilization policy) and forced to work in a "New Fuel" factory, Sister escapes to seek out Carhullan, a shadowy all-female commune run by the enigmatic Jackie Nixon. Carhullan is a hard-knocks utopia, in which women's strengths and passions grow from manual labor, paramilitary training and intense, sometimes sexual, friendships. As the threat of the Authority grows, Sister rises in the ranks of the Carhullan resistance force, oblivious to the increasing similarities between the Authority and Jackie's seductive, psychological control. Though the climax and denouement are sloppily handled, the overall effect is haunting, timely and well wrought.
Customer Reviews
Excellent, but frustrating end
This was an excellent read that is an ominous foreshadowing of a not-too-distant future.
So frustrating that right as the end [Data was Lost] and a critical part of the story was missing? Ugh really???
Daughters of the north
Daughters of the north was an excellent book. The subject a scary one. What person who has read this book cannot help but think that it could actually happen! My only regret about purchasing this book on iBooks was that at the most crucial part "data was lost". Had I purchased this at a bookstore data would have been complete.
Dissappointing end
There were glitches in the online book that caused loss of data from what should have been the climactic event. It just ended back at the beginning.