I read several editorial reviews and none mentioned this. From them, I expected a challenging read. I was interested in the women, their emotional lives, and how they coped with their families and their social and political environments.

I generally give a book a fifty page trial. With this book, I decided at that point not to continue with it. The violence toward the cat was introduced and I knew this was not a good book for me. But, I read the last few pages. (Probably hoping I was wrong and that the outcome for the cat, anyway, was good.) Mistake!

The one star rating is the mimimum accepted by Amazon. I would rate this heartless book in the negatives for the negative impact it had on me.