The Female of the Species, a book review

Maybe this is a fact that I should keep to myself, but I trust you guys not to judge me, so why not share it? I love GoodReads. At one point, it was my most used app, although it has recently been beat out by good old LinkedIn (yes, i know how nerdy i sound). Still, it remains one of my most frequented websites on my laptop. So, when someone I follow read The Female of the Species, I noticed the high reviews it continued to receive, which caught my attention. Since I was hoping to read it during 2017 and never got around to it, I was delighted to see it on the bookshelf of my local libaray during the first week of January 2018. Needless to say, I finally got this book crossed off my bucketlist.

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

(pictured above)

Rating: 8.5/10

Favorite Quote: “You can love someone down to their core and they can love you back just as hard, and if you traded diaries you’d learn things you never suspected. There’s a part of everyone deep down inside of them not meant for you. And the sooner you learn that, the easier your life is gonna be.”

Synopsis: Alex is a senior in high school who has had a tough past. Her sister, Anna, is one of two murder victims in her very small town's history, the other being her supposed attacker. Ever since the loss, Alex has had a fiery and violent side that's been tougher and tougher to hold back. One of the keys to her success in keeping that part of her a secret is social isolation, which has never been a problem until Peekay and Jack come along. Grief affects everyone differently, which people typically understand, but will anyone ever accept Alex's method of coping, and will her life ever return to normal?

Review: Honestly, this book was a great, but challenging read. It covers a lot of hard topics, such as loss, grief, assault, self-worth, and abuse, so I won't say it was easy to flip through the pages. In fact, it made me think about darker topics than I like to focus on in my daily life, but I think it's important that I ponder tough thoughts sometimes. There are people who have faced situations similar to Alex's in the past. How could I help these people? How could our society bring these people away from isolation and into a community of support? How can we try to avoid causing people pain? These are all thoughts that were floating through my brain while I was reading, and if you're looking for a read to tug at your heart and open your eyes to so many things at the same time, this just may be the perfect book for you.

Final Thoughts: There are so many books that I read for fun, all those fluffy romance novels and beach reads in particular, and The Female of the Species is not one of them. This has a high trigger warning for tough topics, so if you struggle reading intense material, I would not recommend this book, but for those of you who can, I believe we have to read these types of novels, the ones that make us think. The point of reading is to expand our knowledge, and The Female of the Species definitely helps its reader to do that, especially in the conversations about loss and it's repercussions.

as always, thanks for sticking around my blog! if you have any book recommendations to send my way, please do so. i'm looking forward to a big year of reading in 2018, so here's to starting out strong. happy reading, lovelies!!

xoxo madison