The Centaurs Wife by Amanda Leduc

The Centaurs Wife Reviews

• 
  Carolyn Walsh

  DNF. Liked the concept, but failed to engage me. Liked the centaurs. The humans not so much.
• 
  Mel (Epic Reading)

  While beautifully written, I felt lost at times throughout this narrative. For the first 150+ pages I had a very hard time feeling like the centaur story and the human one were in any way related. Even though there are connections it just felt a bit forced. It comes together in the end but this weighs on me as keeping this from a five star review; and I'm dropping it to a three from an almost-four.
  I feel like I should say more but honestly it was just so blah for the first three-quarters of the book. It's just too much to take before the good parts come through. And the romance is so forced. I wish I loved this; I really do. But I just didn't engage me the way it should have.
  
  Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.
• 
  onthebooksel

  This wasn't good... bordering on racist lmao
  
  From the just the prologue things are ... lowkey racist. We see a black stallion become a Black man who then marries a pretty white girl who then has kids and they end up being centaur triplets.
  
  Mom realizes her kids are half horse and freaks out, the doctor who helped mom give birth make the dad and the kids escape and they go live on this magical mountain.
  
  Fast forward a little bit and we meet Heather and one of the triplets Estjafan begin ??? Talking ??? after her fathers death until Heather has sex w a human man and ends up pregnant.
  
  After giving birth there’s an apocalyptic event and then shit is just weird and the only people of colour are the centaurs or either Annie the nurse who puts up with way too much bullshit.
  
  If white people wanna write a post apocalyptic book where there’s only horses and whites I sure as shit hope everyone dies in the bird box second apocalypse that hit them 🤡
• 
  Rebeccah

  This was very creative. And the cover art is very nice. That is the kindest praise I can honestly give it. I've certainly never read this story before. But it's also a jumbled mess that didn't work on any level, at least for me.
  
  As a survival story it fell short in the details. We never know where it takes place, other than 'in the city by the mountain'. We never know how many survivors there are, or what the population of the city was to begin with, and this absence of concrete fact led to too many unanswered questions and gaps in logic. I realize the author was not going for something realistic (it's about centaurs, after all) but the collection and distribution of food and resources take up a ton of pages, so I would have liked something that at least made sense. (I will refrain from a rant on all the things that don't add up, as it would get quite lengthy!)
  
  As a magical story it also failed. The trappings are there, the mythical creatures, the fantastic circumstances, and the focus on the power of story. But there doesn't seem to be any point to it. We get some chapters that are stories, like the characters would have been told as children, little fairy tales or fables. But I'd finish one and feel nothing but confused. Is there a moral? Was this a lesson? Was it supposed to make me feel something? Is it supposed to evoke beauty? If the author was hoping for significance, this reader did not get it.
  
  The plot has way too much going on, and yet still felt draggy in places. There is an attempt to tie up loose ends, but it falls short. The relationship between Heather and Estajfan feels lacklustre: we are told about the bond that has been between them for years, but it feels so underdeveloped.
  
  The characters, human and otherwise, were almost uniformly unlikeable. I never felt like we got to know them as people, and they all made completely incomprehensible decisions. Most of the dialogue was people arguing with each other. The whole book just oozes resentment and unhappiness. There were no moments of levity or wonder to lift the mood, and I don't think anyone was ever happy for even a split second.
  
  Maybe this is an elaborate look at how people cope with disability and post-partum depression. Maybe I missed the entire point of the book. I tried to see it through that lens, to infuse it with some kind of meaning, but the only take-away I get is that there is no place in the world that anyone can truly belong, and the only thing that keeps you tied to the world is grief, and even that is boring.
• 
  Jael Richardson

  Proud to have this as my first read of 2021.
• 
  Emily Stewart

  Leduc masterfully captures the darkness and hope of fairytales in this story of survival and community, weaving together magic, sorrow, and the wonder of nature.
  
  The story captures attention right from the beginning with a tale of impossible love that is everything you'd expect of a fairy tale. It then takes us to a more contemporary setting as a meteor shower wreaks havoc on a city near a mountain. As we follow the survivors, we gradually learn their backstories and uncover the forces and stories that drive them both together and apart.
  
  As the story progresses, the boundaries between the "real" word of the city and the magic of the mountain grow slimmer and the line between truth and story blurs, allowing for a captivating examination of what it means to be in-between.
  
  There's a weirdness to the novel for sure. It's part post-apocalypse survival tale, part fairytale, part love story, part family drama. It's got humans and guns and medicine, but also centaurs, and screaming flowers, and transformations. It does not offer easy answers for how or why events happen. But all this weirdness is definitely delightful.
• 
  Maria

  Wow! The perfect magical realism book I didn’t know I needed until now. I really enjoyed this book right from the start, with its mystery elements and dystopian setting.
  
  It was great how everything tied together in the end with how characters were connected, and the main message of climate change is very relevant to today.
  
  Highly recommend!
• 
  Andrea McDowell

  This novel starts out tentatively based in realism, and then steadily grows into magic and fairy tale, until by the end it is almost purely myth.
  
  I read Leduc's
  Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space when it came out a few years ago--I bought a copy for Echo at the release party, and we both loved it. Echo has since made disability a main focus in a number of her art projects, including a strange fishy-monster Little Mermaid comic for art class directly inspired by the book and Leduc's talk at the release. So I was thrilled to see her new novel coming out containing many of the themes she previously explored in non-fiction, and asked for and received a copy from NetGalley.
  
  Aside: NetGalley's copies often suck. I've sometimes received pdfs which I'm sure would be wonderful if I were reading it on a tablet, but I'm not, I'm reading them on my little phone, and even zoomed in as far as I can the print is tiny and it makes my old-lady eyeballs hurt. It takes me forever to read these, and I sometimes abandon them. The Centaur's Wife was worth it, but knowing how forcefully Leduc advocates for accessibility in all her publications (they are published simultaneously in print and other accessible formats such as braille, audio, etc.), I have to think she's be pissed to know that the netgalley version is such a pita. Anyway. It's a NetGalley release; I received a pdf version in tiny, tiny print in exchange for this review.
  
  The Centaur's Wife is about Heather, a woman with cerebral palsy who survives the end of the world, along with her husband and newborn twin daughters. The initial cause is (or appears to be) asteroid strikes, but as magic grows and the earth becomes alive and not at all disposed to be kind to humans, the initial cause is complicated and mythologized. The main narrative is interspersed both with short fairy-tales by Leduc set in this version of the world, and another storyline about a doctor in a vague historical period who helped to deliver a human woman of her centaur triplets, sired by a horse in human disguise. All three threads slowly converge throughout the novel, and while the story is often dark, the writing is beautiful. The characters are interesting, complicated, and human; questions of frailty of all kinds--disability and otherwise--are raised throughout and shown to give rise to a particular kind of strength.
  
  Strongly recommended, and I'm looking forward already to Leduc's next book.
• 
  TraceyL

  Majorly disappointing. This book started of strong but the story quickly turned into kind of a mess. The characters were the most tedious people making stupid decisions and bickering with each other over unimportant issues when they are literally starving to death.
  
  I liked the author's nonfiction book
  Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space, and I like that this book had a main character whose disability naturally fit into the story. It talked about her condition just the right amount, so that the reader knew what it was and how it affected her, but it didn't stop the momentum of the story. But I think this book as a whole was just bad.
• 
  Shima

  This book is about:
  - A spiteful magical mountain.
  - The human drive for survival.
  - Monsters and in-between things.
  - Stories. (that we tell ourselves and others.)
  - A magical, natural, apocalypse.
  - Grief.
  
  This book is also:
  -Slow to get going.
  -A little repetitive at times.
  -Very weird.
  
  Sometimes you just want a weird book. A book that makes its own rules. A book that feels grown out of the wild seeds in an author's brain, rather than being carefully planned out.
  This is that book.
• 
  Peter

  A magical book (pun intentional) and not quite like any I've read before. It is also one of the best speculative fiction novels I've read in the past few years. As far as I'm concerned it's an instant classic. Do yourself a favour and read it.
• 
  Emma Giles (byo.book)

  Weird but I really enjoyed this
• 
  Clare

  I loved this book. Stories within stories within stories, full of magic and yet so relevant to our world "in real life," as they say. "Stories are never only stories." Although it's very different, I was reminded of Danny Ramadan's The Clothesline Swing, and often of Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea. It also hearkens back to favourites of my youth, including stories by Alan Garner. The fables in The Centaur's Wife feel both ancient and fresh, and they carry a cautionary tale.
• 
  Madi

  I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this book.
• 
  Dominique "Eerie" Sobieska

  The premise of the book was very promising. I was drawn with its strong beginning but slowly lost interest the more I progressed. It just sounded too dramatic and the story doesn't not seem to move forward, instead just spirals around for 100 pages.
  
  I found nothing likable in any of the characters.
  
  Also, maybe someone can tell me but the centaurs have lived for a very long time? If they never left that mountains... where is it situated? For some odd reason, the story is settled in North America for me. But centaurs come from a Greek background. This is legit something I want to know and cannot let go.
• 
  Sara

  I got this through a blind date with a book and was honestly kind of skeptical (I feel like "The _______'s Wife" titles are quite tired now), but decided to give it a try anyway. Ultimately, I liked a lot of elements of the book - it has a really interesting mix of fairy tales and a kind of environmental horror that echoes Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation". I also enjoyed the way disability, ableism, ableism, and trauma are weaved through the story without feeling forced or devolving into tropes. The story itself was totally wild and weird, but in a good way. The book was engaging enough that I finished it over the course of a day of travelling.
  
  However, I just didn't like how everything came together narratively. I think in stories like this one it makes sense to not have all of the plot lines nearly tied up, but that approach sometimes just left the story feeling incomplete.
  
  **SPOILERS**
  
  For example, I don't think the lineage between the different humans - the centaur's wife, the doctor(s), the main characters in present day - needed to be explicitly laid out, but I personally found them to be confusing enough that it took away from the story. For example, the twin babies seem to get their red hair from B, but there's also the implication that it might be related to the fox or that them being twins comes from the very first doctor, neither of whom seem to have any connection at all to B.
  
  One thing that Leduc does do quite masterfully is examining really uncomfortable emotions and experiences. She shows what looks like post-partum depression in a way that's quite brutal without painting the mother as a monster who hates her children. She also tells different stories of grief, showing that while people may experience it in different ways, it's rarely straightforward and the people we lose never fully leave us.
  
  Ultimately, I didn't love the story but it really piqued my interest in the author - I will definitely be checking out her nonfiction book on fairy tales and disability and keep an eye out for her future work.
• 
  Nathalie Daudet

  i liked aspects of this book, and enjoyed the concept, but it really did feel all over the place to me. the "if we work together we'll survive" started to become repetitive and i just wanted a little MORE, yanno?
• 
  Jordan Jones

  I wanted to like this more than I did. The story is disjointed and strange. The story of the centaurs and how all the characters are connected was interesting but confusing; the fairy tales between chapters have so many of the same elements as the story itself but it is unclear if the characters are actually in the stories and it makes you lose track of who is who. The meteor apocalypse was a strange way to set up the story: if the Mountain has decided the time for humans is over and the centaurs and nature should reign, it seems coincidental that meteors would be the cause of the end of things. Meteors are a convenient way to kill off everyone to create a smaller character pool. I also thought the dialogue was not quite right, like people would probably not say it like that in conversation? I am so confused about 'the scream'. What was that? Another convenient way to kill the remaining characters so only our main ones are left. I am also confused why it is called the Centaur's Wife; the first fairytale is about the horse who becomes a man and has centaur babies with a human wife who freaks out, so he becomes a centaur. Then the whole book is about the Centaur babies and this town and the apocalypse and the wife is hardly mentioned again! Unless Heather is supposed to be the centaur's wife, but they never marry or really explain their romance or connection and she does not birth a centaur baby so.. I thought it was going to be a love story. I am now not even sure what it was.
  
  I love LOVED Leduc's Disfigured, so I was stoked to read this. Overall, disappointed.
• 
  Derek Newman-Stille

  Heather and Tasha are both storytellers. Both weave tales for their own needs. When meteors fall and humanity is left starving and disoriented, Heather carries on her father’s tradition of telling fairy tales to create a more magical life while Tasha keeps telling others the bigger fairy tale – that they can all survive.
  
  In The Centaur’s Wife, Amanda Leduc reveals the power of storytelling, necessary lies, and complicated truths. She reveals the human need to create stories and the transformative power of the tales we tell. Part apocalyptic fiction, part myth, and part collection of new fairy tales, The Centaur’s Wife demonstrates Leduc’s versatility and brilliance as a storyteller.
  
  The Centaur’s Wife is a tale of the liminal, the between, and not just because centaurs are half human and half horse. Leduc tells a story about outsiders, edgy Others who belong neither completely to one world or another. Leduc reveals the power of not belonging, of existing outside the order imposed by those in power. Her characters question easy categories and simple social structures, revelling in complexities. They disrupt norms and it is through this disruption that they invite in new possibilities.
• 
  Miranda Crowe

  I am still trying to sort out in my mind the mess of a story that this novel was. Such an amazing concept but unfortunately it just read horribly. The narrative style was hard to read and get into. I still don't really understand what happened...I appreciate a story that has many threads that get resolved at the end and make sense, but you shouldn't expect that kind of resolution from this novel. The way it was written also made it really hard to keep up with which story line you were in, which parts were visions, dreams, or memories. I think part of the problem was the lack of description around the characters. I couldn't remember what they had been described to look like since it was so quickly done at the beginning if at all, that when you get farther into the story it's hard to picture who is who.
• 
  Sarah (more.books.than.days)

  Amanda Leduc takes the dark beauty found in the original Grimm fairytales, and makes it into something new, crafting her own tales that rival those we've grown up with. She brings out the monsters, the weak, the dispossessed, and reveals that they are exactly who and what they should be. She reveals the power of community, of chosen family, and of the stories we tell ourselves. This novel is magical realism meets post-apocalyptic, and for any lover of fairy tale and fantasy, it is a must read. I also highly recommend reading Leduc's work of non-fiction, Disfigured, which reveals many of the foundational ideas, along with her own disability rights activism, that have been formative to this work of fiction.
• 
  Zeynep

  4/5 - March 2022 Women's History Month
  
  Amanda Leduc’ten okuduğum ilk kitaptı The Centaur’s Wife. Açıkçası başlarken acaba benim için fazla mı fantastik olacak diye biraz korkmuştum. Fakat kısa süre içinde kitabın ne kadar ulaşılabilir ve okunabilir olduğunu anladım. Hikayemiz distopya ve masal dünyasının karışımı, fantastik ile bilimkurgunun güzel bir harmonisi gibi ilerliyor. Ana karakterlerimiz dışında aynı zamanda sentorlar da kitabın önemli kişilerini oluşturuyorlar. Bence sentor karakterler insanlardan 3737464882826 kat daha iyi yaratılmış karakterlerdi… Özellikle ana karakterimiz Heather’ın kocası B, insana cinnet geçirtir gerçekten. Bu açıdan Aura, Estajfan ve Petrolio’nun ve onların geçmişinin anlatıldığı bölümleri çok daha keyifle okudum. Ayrıca side-note olarak kitaptaki bölümler arasına serpilmiş masal ve halk hikayeleri tarzı bölümleri de çok sevdiğimi belirtmeliyim.
  
  Benim açımdan bu romanı 3.5’ten 4’e atan 2 nokta vardı: Birincisi ana karakterimiz Heather’ın engelli bir karakter olmasıydı. Ne yazık ki günümüz kitaplarının herhangi birinde engelli bir karaktere rastlama ihtimalimiz çok düşük. Bu durum hele ana karakterler açısından neredeyse hiç karşımıza çıkmıyor. Bu açıdan Leduc’ün kendisi gibi bir serebral palsi hastası olan ana karakterimiz Heather, oldukça otantik ve önemli noktalara parmak basmıştı. Kitap Heather üzerinden engelli bireylerin günlük hayatta karşılaştıkları fiziksel, psikolojik ve sosyal zorluklara çok doğru bir şekilde öne çıkarmıştı. Bundan dolayı kitabı ve yazarı tebrik etmek dışında yapabileceğim başka hiçbir şey yok.
  
  2. Noktaysa yazarın muazzam kalemi oldu. Oldukça betimlemelerle dolu ve masalların ağırlıkta olduğu bir kitap söz konusu olunca biraz korktuğumu itiraf etmeliyim. Açıkçası okurken biraz zorlanacağımı, takip edemeyeceğimi ve olayları kaçırıp kitaptan sıkılacağımı düşünmüştüm. Fakat yazarın bal gibi akan sıcacık ve sade ama duygu yüklü yazım tarzı benim için romanı çok daha eğlenceli bir hale getirdi. Yazarın üslubunu bu kadar beğendiğim için de kendisinin kurgu dışı kitabını ve gelecekte yazacağı diğer eserlerini de okumayı planlıyorum
  
  Masal gibi akıp giden fakat distopik yanıyla da biraz bilimkurgu havasına sahip farklı bir anlatı deneyimlemek isterseniz The Centaur’s Wife’ı sizin için önerebilirim. Bence roman fantastik kitaplar çerçevesi içinde oldukça özgün ve sıcak bir hikaye sunuyor ortaya. Umarım okuyanlar da en az benim kadar sever bu kitabı (PS: Goodreads’de hakkında birsürü kötü yorum var, onlara aldırmayın :))
• 
  Cat Bezubiak

  Ultimately, this book left me a little bit underwhelmed.
  
  I felt very strongly for the main character, Heather, but I didn't feel like I built up much of a connection for the rest. They felt a little bit like afterthoughts, sort of all dragged in to support Heather's story. Yet, I also get the sense that maybe that was the point.
  
  What I did love was the writing style. It's present tense with the exception of some flashbacks and story telling, and that's not a common literary choice because it's a challenge to do well. This author did it well. It's evocative and dark, like the plot, and drew me in so much so that I devoured the book in a few hours over the course of two days.
  
  It's super rare in an fantasy book to find POC who aren't from the south; Sothoros, Southron, etc and those POC almost never come to us in shape of magical creatures. In this book the POC come from the mountains and are the magical creatures! A refreshing change from the typical blonde elves and white skinned, raven haired maidens.
  
  Yet, having put the book down last night, I did not wake finding myself still thinking about it, which to me is always the sign of a 5 star book.
• 
  Ann Douglas

  A beautifully written and masterfully structured book. I love the fact that there are layers and layers to this story; and I loved the way the narrative spiralled back and forth across characters, events, and time. I guess I've gotten to a point in my life where I find the predictable and the linear really boring (which eliminates a good chunk of commercial fiction these days). A highly satisfying read, even if it was a little darker than I had anticipated.
• 
  Gemington

  What a challenging, disturbing and hopeful book. It was not easy to read. This author is asking difficult questions about humanity, belonging, and socialization all within the frame of a post apocalyptic fairy tale. She provides no answers and perhaps has none to offer.
  
  This is a book about trauma and resilience that suggests that those who suffer have more capacity for survival. People with disabilities are enough, are capable, and look to story to find meaning and make sense of the pain in their lives. Sometimes the meaning is hard to untangle, but reading it, hearing the stories, is productive and thought provoking. The recurring and changing stories and their meanings prompt reflection. This book merits multiple readings. I wonder what I might get from it later, once I’ve had time to process.
• 
  Jennifer

  This book kept surprising me, and drew me completely into its world. Plus, her invented fairytales, sprinkled throughout, were a true delight.
• 
  Cass

  A little slow but great concept. Reminded me of station 11.
• 
  Emily Furholter

  A lot of characters, a bit hard to follow. It was fine, I don’t really have any feelings about it. Easy to read, just fine.