A promising story about a group of three women with supernatural powers tasked with avenging the rape and murders of girls. Unfortunately ended up being very predictable and misandrist.

• Published: 2022
• Completed: 28/10/2024
• Pages: 470

“The Change” by Kirsten Miller tells the story of three women (Harriet, Jo and Nessa) with super natural powers, inexplicably drawn together to avenge the rape and murder of several underage girls.

I started off really enjoying this novel but by the end, actually quite disliked it. Miller’s novel is a revenge fantasy that responds to the real world institutionalised prejudice and abuse that women experience everyday. While this fantasy is understandable and justified, the novel became too predictable and drawn out for me.

Miller does very little to obscure the plot and less than a third of the way into the novel, flatly reveals who the villains are. Other baddies are uncovered along the way, but none that you can’t see coming well before the protagonists do themselves. The men who are the target of the protagonists are born bad and die bad. They are irredeemable and it is hard not to draw a conclusion whereby Miller concludes all men are that way.

“The species wasn’t entirely corrupt, Harriet observed. Once in a while, one of them would surprise you. Such actions never redeemed them completely, of course, but it did make Harriet wonder if they really deserved to be wiped off the planet.” P419

This foregone conclusion means the last half of the book is just spent waiting for the villains to killed off one by one. This might have been acceptable if the deaths were entertaining, but unfortunately they are written in a manner that is strangely banal and anticlimactic, often not even occurring in the immediate presence of the central characters and narrative.

What Miller does do well in “The Change” though is create vignettes that put us in the mind and bodies of women experiencing mistreatment. One chapter that talks of the common problems associated with menstruation was a huge eye opener for me. It made me think of all the women in my life and their stoically hidden struggles imposed by a society that wants to degrade and shame them.

It’s probably way too predictable that as a man this novel didn’t resonate with me — I’m clearly not the target audience — but I struggled with the reversal of violence. I know that it is hopelessly naive and unrealistic of me, but I would rather a world where men become more tender than one where women become more violent.

Quotes

“For the next three days, you will drink nothing but water and consume nothing but air. You will spend eight hours every day staring out at the ocean. At the end of that time, everything should be clear.” P433

Typograhy

Basic and functional. Didn’t enjoy the use of monotype for the news section.

New Words

• Avuncular
• Lien
• Silphium
• Augury
• Oatmeal bath
• Phototoxin
• Adirondack

Ratings

• Ailsa: 8
• Hayley: 7
• Sarah: 7.5
• Sally: 7
• Steph: 7
• Thành: 6

Restaurant

Good Burger