The Female of the Species is not going to be a book for everyone, but for those who read it, I can almost assure you that it won’t be a book you’ll soon forget. I’m writing this review with tears still drying on my face. This book will undoubtedly leave you angry and heartbroken, but man…it’s so worth it.
Before I talk about the book, I want to issue all the trigger warnings.
Rape
Murder
Animal abuse
Underage drinking
Illegal drug use
Alex Craft is a girl filled with revenge. Her older sister was raped, tortured, and murdered and the suspected culprit went free. Alex winds up torturing and murdering her sister’s killer, a fact that is revealed pretty early on in the book, so it’s not a spoiler.
Jack Fisher is the all-American boy. Great at sports, popular, you know the drill. But there’s something about Alex that is mysterious and he can’t seem to work out. With his senior year coming to an end, he’s determined to make Alex notice him.
Peekay (PK) is the preacher’s kid. She plays by the rules and volunteers with Alex at the local animal shelter. She’s curious about her fellow volunteer/classmate and her way with helping abused and scared animals.
All three characters interact and their stories intertwine, but Alex, in my opinion, is really the focus of the story. She’s torn between trying to calm the darkness inside her, while finding herself in situations she’d never prepared for – like potentially having friends.
The Female of the Species has plenty of your standard YA high school drama fare, like jealous ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, gossip, and parties with hooking up and underage drinking. But Alex adds this intensity to the story, this grittiness and violence that are so addicting to read. That said, because of her intensity, I was grateful that the chapters switched points of view between her, Jack, and Peekay. A whole book of just Alex fighting her baser instincts would have been even rougher to get through.
This book definitely focuses on rape culture. The frustration of victim’s families. The hesitation in reporting sexual assault. Alex’s memory of her sister is becoming twisted as sister becomes synonymous with one of only two murders in a small town. There’s one moment where Alex talks about how she can’t recall her sister’s face anymore, that when she thinks of her sister, Anna, all she recalls is how she looked in missing person posters. Like I said, this book is heartbreaking, and I couldn’t fault Alex for her coldness and isolation, as the grief over the death of her sister turns into her worry that there’s an ugliness inside her that she’ll be unable to stop after she kills her sister’s murderer.
Alex also draws strong parallels to double standards and rape culture. No one looks shocked when a man calls a woman a bitch, but a woman matching his vulgar language is gasped at. There’s a moment at school where a teenage boy is pretending to have sex with a basketball, everyone is laughing.
I wonder what would happen if I went down there, took a ball out of the cage, and pretended to have sex with it. I think people would stop and look. I think the whole gym would come to a standstill and teachers would definitely interfere. There would be discussions (again) about what exactly is wrong with me that I would do such a thing. I would definitely log some more hours in the guidance office.
But ‘boys will be boys,’ our favorite phrase that excuses too many things, while the only thing we have for the opposite gender is ‘women,’ said with disdain and punctuated with an eye roll.
Female rage and romance is a topic that often comes up when talking about the genre, but I wouldn’t necessarily call this a romance. However, it’s still empowering to see this troubled young woman battling her hatred for those who hurt others and wondering how her newfound friends would feel if they knew what she was capable of. I often struggle with the same questions in terms of my mental illness. Will my boyfriend feel the same way for me when my depression pops up and I’m angry and crying all the time? Will my roommates and friends treat me differently knowing I have weekly therapy visits?
As women, how do we handle the emotions within ourselves that are seen as ugly? The anger, the rage, the frustration, the sadness? Do we embrace it and keep ourselves isolated out of fear? Or do we hide those parts of ourselves from those we consider friends and family, people we’re supposed to love and trust?
I will warn you that the book does not have a happy ending.
The jacket copy is emblazoned with a quote from a Rudyard Kipling poem:
“The female of the species is more deadly than the male.”
The Female of the Species was a cathartic read. I was often flushed with anger, crying from sadness, or amped up with girl power. It’s a powerful book and one that I’ll be talking about for a long time to come. I’m even tempted to create my next tattoo from the book.
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Thanks!
I have this book on hold at the library but I’m not sure I’ll have the emotional fortitude to read it. That said I’m glad this book is out there and I want moar books/media centered on female rage.
@Cat G: I don’t blame you. It’s extremely intense and I think you have to be in the right mindset to make it through.
Cat G: YES. Female rage, female vengeance – I’m especially interested in vengeful antiheroines of a “well-intentioned extremist” bent. (And have a long-stalled work-in-progress featuring one – thanks for making me want to go back to it!)
I really liked it, it’s just so hard a book to recommend because of the subject matter. Mindy McGinnis specializes in tough, fierce heroines (for further trauma, read her historical YA, “A Madness So Discreet”), and Alex is her fiercest yet.
I deeply appreciated the skewering of rape culture, and I also must say a good word for the portrayal of Branley. In most other YA books, she’d be the skank with no personality and no redeeming values, and she’s given a lot of character development. I don’t like her much, but I understand where she’s coming from.
@Lara: I also had that same worry for Branley, but she turned into a really complicated character who was just searching for love and, at her core, I think she was really lonely and heartbroken.
I loved this book too. I loved how complex Alex was. While certainly she did bad things she was often the moral compass. For example she was the one who reprimanded her friends for slut shaming. The book did a great job showing all of the different forms misogyny takes. It was thought provoking but still immensely readable.
A PK who “plays by the rules and volunteers…at the local animal shelter”?
Not certain I’ve seen such a creature in nature.
I’m sorely tempted by this but the trigger warning for animal abuse makes me really hesitant a big animals, kids and the elderly are where my lines are firmly drawn.
I’m sorely tempted by this but the trigger warning for animal abuse makes me really hesitant; animals , kids and the elderly are where my lines are firmly drawn.
Oops – sorry for the double post!
@Gingerly: If this help you make a decision one way or another, most of the animal abuse happens offscreen. Two characters work in an animal shelter, so people dump animals on them or report abuse that they have to take care of (like abandoned puppies). Jack and his father also work at a slaughterhouse and there’s only one scene there, but it’s pretty graphic.
@Amanda: thanks for the extra information – I think I will have to give this one a miss.
Maybe it was the most logical conclusion for her character, but I think that is an extremely problematic thing to claim the ending was the best possible scenario. Alex is punished throughout the book for straying from acceptable behavior, and that word choice seems to second this idea that the punishment is necessary or warranted. Why is it the best possible scenario? Because she is violent and might not change her ways and she is a woman? What about the violence she suffers from men? Why is that male violence acceptable?
SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF THE BOOK. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
@Louise: I don’t think that the male violence is acceptable or that Alex’s ending is punishment. To me, I think what happens is a fitting ending and I’ll tell you why. I don’t think Alex would have every given up her sense of justice. She has expressed no remorse for her actions, only remorse for how it made those around her feel. So thinking that Alex would always be violent either leaves her ending up in prison (because she’s not getting a pass for killing “bad guys”) or having her violence be her end, especially if she finds herself in a precarious situation.
Dying to keep someone safe and surrounded by people who love and care about her was the best possible way. I read it as a redemption of sorts in where Alex’s previous failure to help keep her sister safe is redeemed by giving her life to save someone else. She also goes through her life minimizing herself, blending in, and I think realizing the mark she had on other people’s lives would be a comfort to her. Her death was the best possible outcome for me as a reader and would probably bring Alex the most peace. I didn’t see it as a punishment and it doesn’t have anything to do with her feelings of rage coming from a woman. In past reviews, I’ve lauded heroines who are angry and vengeful. I welcome women who embrace their darker emotions, but I also realize that sometimes, those emotions can eat away at us and leave us with a rather unhappy ending.
I don’t think Alex deserved to die. It was a sad thing to read and I cried my eyes out. But my interpretation of Alex’s character would be that she’d find her demise a bit bittersweet and not wholly unsurprising.
Oh God! I love books with heavy angst and dark themes. Reading this review makes me desperate to read it. But I’m scared. I’m not sure I can deal with the non-HEA.
Hmm… but I think I’ll have to gird my loins and squishy organs to give it a go, it sounds intense and therefore absolutely worth the tears.
Jay 🙂
I just finished it and loved it! Well, the ending not so much, but it had to be that way though.
This book sounds so interesting however with my latest bout of moods I don’t think I can read this and not end up emotionally crippled in some way. great review.
I finished reading this about an hour ago, and I still have tears in my eyes.
SPOILER ALERT
No other part in the book brought me to tears, but when Alex died, I lost it. I was rooting for her. I have never cried this hard over a book in my life.I think it’ll take me a while to get over this one….
SPOILER ALERT:
Why did she kill the uncle? because he was a molester? I’m still confused by that part, what did I miss??
this book oh my god, i loved this book so much. when i read it i was pretty young and didnt completely understand what had happened, but i just remember finishing it and sobbing for hours. this book has such a special place in my heart, i hate sad books and scary books but it doesn’t matter please read it. its so so good i cant even express how good it is.