Read women talking it never ends. It is written from an interesting perspective, as it written from meeting mtinutes. It raises good questions about love and faith and family. The ending is a non ending. There is no closure to the story!

Women Talking, Miriam Toews, author, Mathew Edison, narrator
This novel is based on a real-life story about the abuse of women. It occurred between 2005-2009, and there are some that believe the abuse might still be occurring. It took place in the small Mennonite Molotshna community, in a remote area of Bolivia. The members of the community do not know how to read or write. This novel expands the story about the women, the attacks on them, and their eventual response to it. Almost every woman and child in that community had suffered at the hands of a man in the community. When the women realized that although they had been told they were attacked by ghosts and spirits, or were being punished for their bad behavior, they had really been drugged by an anesthetic used on animals, and then brutalized and raped, some sought vengeance. After one of the rapists was attacked and another murdered, the men responsible were arrested and taken away for their own safety.
The women were given two days to vote, by signing an “X” beneath a descriptive picture. They had three choices. They may leave the community, stay and fight, or forgive the men and continue to be subjected to their power over them. Forgiveness and passivity are cornerstones of their religion. The women believed if they left the community and were excommunicated, they would not go to heaven.
Unable to read or write, how would they survive? A small group, pretending to be sewing quilts, met secretly in the hayloft of a member of the community. They discussed their options. August Epp, the newly hired boy’s teacher, is asked by Ona to take the minutes of their meetings. He is the voice of their story. When he was 12 years-old, his own parents had been excommunicated. He understands the problems they are facing. Fragile and emotional, he is a man who was ridiculed by other men. However, he is in love with Ona, his childhood friend. She is now pregnant, a victim of the nighttime rapes.
As the women spoke, the crimes against them were revealed, their suffering and the painful consequences of the abuse was revealed, in different ways, by each of them, with the physical and mental after effects. Still, they must unite and make a decision to stay or leave the community and go off into an unknown future. They had grappled with the idea of remaining helpless or of trying to find freedom. They talked about equal opportunity, protecting their children, sexism, chauvinism, misogyny, abortion, rape, faith, freedom and what constitutes it, forgiveness vs vengeance, passivism vs violence, family dynamics, the very existence of G-d, of hope and survival. Would they survive?