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    The Girl in the Road: A Novel
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    The Girl in the Road: A Novel
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    The Girl in the Road: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Girl in the Road: A Novel

    Written by Monica Byrne

    Narrated by Dioni Collins and Nazneen Contractor

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A debut that Neil Gaiman calls "Glorious. . . . So sharp, so focused and so human." The Girl in the Road describes a future that is culturally lush and emotionally wrenching.

    Monica Byrne bursts on to the literary scene with an extraordinary vision of the future.  In a world where global power has shifted east and revolution is brewing, two women embark on vastly different journeys-each harrowing and urgent and wholly unexpected.

    When Meena finds snakebites on her chest, her worst fears are realized: someone is after her and she must flee India.  As she plots her exit, she learns of the Trail, an energy-harvesting bridge spanning the Arabian Sea that has become a refuge for itinerant vagabonds and loners on the run.  This is her salvation.  Slipping out in the cover of night, with a knapsack full of supplies including a pozit GPS, a scroll reader, and a sealable waterproof pod, she sets off for Ethiopia, the place of her birth.

    Meanwhile, Mariama, a young girl in Africa, is forced to flee her home.  She joins up with a caravan of misfits heading across the Sahara. She is taken in by Yemaya, a beautiful and enigmatic woman who becomes her protector and confidante. They are trying to reach Addis Abba, Ethiopia, a metropolis swirling with radical politics and rich culture.  But Mariama will find a city far different than she ever expected-romantic, turbulent, and dangerous.

    As one heads east and the other west, Meena and Mariama's fates are linked in ways that are mysterious and shocking to the core.

    Written with stunning clarity, deep emotion, and a futuristic flair, The Girl in the Road is an artistic feat of the first order: vividly imagined, artfully told, and profoundly moving.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 20, 2014
    ISBN9780804166225
    Unavailable
    The Girl in the Road: A Novel
    Author

    Monica Byrne

    Monica Byrne studied biochemistry at Wellesley, NASA, and MIT before pivoting to fiction and theater. She is the author of the novel The Girl in the Road, winner of the 2014 Otherwise Award, and loves a good thunderstorm.

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    Reviews for The Girl in the Road

    3.5/5

    157 ratings35 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I had mixed feelings about this one. The futuristic road trip stories across Africa and the Arabian sea were amazing, but the mystical connections were confusing and sometimes profoundly creepy and I'm still not sure what the epilogue was about.
    • 5/5
      This book was a departure from the styles I normally read. The story line was very well thought out & the book was written so well that it felt effortless to just keep reading on page after page. So absorbing, I read it in a day! I really liked how it takes place in the nearly here future - with the futuristic touches so easy to accept.The personal stories in this book were incredibly interesting, although I wasn't sure how I felt about the revelations at the ending. What happened to the traditional happily ever after? Oh well, back to my cozy mysteries stack to get my fix of unrealistic happy endings. :)
    • 5/5
      This is a heavy book, dealing with serious, triggering issues. I totally missed this in the blurbs I read, so be warned. That being said, the issues were handled well and the book gives you a lot to think about. It was refreshing to have POC as the main characters, multi-religious, non-western cultures. All blended together to describe a plausible future for our earth. Regarding "the controversial scene" My take is the scene has been changed by the narrator to redefine what really happened, clearly this was a traumatic betrayal of trust by a damaged adult, further damaging an already scarred child . So I encourage people to read this, as long as you know what you are getting into. The marketing is pretty misleading and a reader can be caught off guard by the serious issues presented, but that shouldn't be held against such a fantastic book.
    • 3/5
      Tiptree winner 2014A long meander that doesn't really get anywhere.
    • 1/5
      I've been slogging away at this book for months, and I just can't get into it. The realities keep shifting, all the chracters are continually hallucinating (I think) and even though I appreciate a book with main characters of Asian and African backgrounds and settings, I just don't have it in me to follow this sort of literary fiction. Not my cup of tea.
    • 2/5
      Meh. I wanted to like this so so much. A science fiction novel featuring protagonists that are female as well as non- caucasian and non North American or European, a real rarity. The first chapter or two, Meena's story, had me riveted.

      Unfortunately we leave Meena and go to a completely different story featuring a young girl. The risk of having two different stories is that one is far less compelling than the other. Unfortunately, this is the case here. This other story kind of has the feel of a fable but it is just not that compelling. I lost interest.

      i got just past the halfway point and my own personal rule is that if i quit after the 50% mark, it counts as read. After all, i gave the book a more than fair shot and a lot of valuable time. I rarely quit a book that late, so don't often have to invoke that rule. Usually you have long since made the decision whether to commit to finishing by the halfway point.

      This is Byrne's debut novel and I certainly would not be opposed to trying a subsequent novel by her, because there is talent there.
    • 4/5
      This book took me forever to read which was extremely disappointing to me since usually a good book for me is a book that has me hooked where I can’t stop reading. Yet, The Girl in the Road was so fascinating that I actually found myself taking each page slowly because I wanted to absorb each second of Byrne’s world.I originally picked this book out because I’m a huge science fiction fan and was intrigued by Monica Byrne’s author bio. According to her goodreads bio, she “has a pilot’s license (from when she wanted to be an astronaut), a yoga teacher certification (from when she realized she didn’t want to be an astronaut), and one very-marked-up-passport (from when she realized she was an artist).” I was blown away by how much life experience she had the opportunity to grasp from these three adventures and knew that this book would be full of intriguing ideas.I will admit, I was not disappointed in Monica Byrne. Her writing style is profound and honest. The details in the story are precise and elaborate which made the locations intriguing. What I didn’t like however about The Girl in the Road was how the stories were separated between Mariama and Meena. The story starts out in third-person with Meena as the main character and I fell in love with her. She was mysterious and I found myself wanting to be her best friend. My favorite moment with her is when she is in the HydraCorp Museum and meets Lucia. In this moment she is so free and real that at that very moment I knew this would be a character I would love.But….a few pages later the story shifts to Mariama’s point of view and although the chapter was brief before returning to Meena it was enough to make my interest in the story disappear entirely. From there, I found the story enjoyable just not as much as I had in the first two chapters of the book. I still enjoyed the book and thought it was brilliant how Mariama and Meena were connected I still found myself wishing that they were two different books.However, what did bother me about the book was how unnecessarily sexually everything had to be. I am completely accepting of this being a different time from our current world but I still didn’t think the random initiations of sexual encounters was necessary. My biggest example being when Meena arrives in Ethiopia, she’s already had sex with two different “strangers” within a day of her arrival. It didn’t seem very relevant and since sexually explicit books usually aren’t my thing, I found myself skimming through certain scenes because I simply wasn’t interested. I figure if I want to read a feel-good-book I’ll go read a Nicholas Sparks or Danielle Steel book instead.Overall, the number of people I would recommend this book to is pretty slim since many people I know aren’t interested in Sci Fi and if they are this defiantly doesn’t make the cut. However, I would recommend it to any reader interested in a good adventure story about self-discovery.Note: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this honest review.
    • 4/5
      For some reason I thought The Girl in the Road was going to be an entirely different book than what it was — I'm not sure why. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the story about two very different women making long journeys, both escaping from danger (perceived or real), both looking for hope at the end of the road. One makes her journey as a young girl by sneaking aboard a truck crossing Africa, the other walks along the snakelike spine of the Trail, an energy generation system spanning from India to Ethiopia. This story is richly textured, with complex characters and explorations of sex, self, and sanity. A great read (although I really didn't understand the epilogue and if someone wants to explain it to me that would be awesome).
    • 4/5
      Yes, this book is bizarre, and even arresting at times. It is not a lighthearted romp you’ll find yourself reading on the beach, but rather the type of book that delves into the darker side of human emotion and sexuality…. I received this book as a part of my mystery Book Club subscription, and yes, I did pay for it, so this isn’t a paid-for type of review. I’m reviewing this book because I didn’t see a lot of reviews about it, and I thought maybe mine could be somewhat helpful to others.It follows two different people, one in the “future” and one in the “present,” and each of them are first person female narratives: Meena and Mariama. They are both speaking to people that were meaningful in their lives, which gives their cadence of speech an awkward flow, at times. I know a lot of people aren’t a fan of that kind of narrative, and I can’t say I am huge fan, either, but if it’s executed well it can still be enjoyable. In this case, I think the two voices are very similar, but perhaps that was done by Byrne intentionally to emphasize the manner in which they are interwoven. You may begin to speculate as to how while you’re reading, but about 100 pages from the end, you finally find out exactly how.This is not an inherently happy story, but it really it is fascinating, if you are the kind of person who enjoys darker books. I know very little about Indian or Ethiopian culture, but reading through this book, I was looking up slang words and food, so it added an interesting, learning-type of element to reading it. I’m dying to try some of the food mentioned in it, namely the Indian sweets that are mentioned a lot with Mariama’s odyssey to Ethiopia as a child.As a warning to others, this book does contain the following, either explicitly or in passing: violence, lesbian sex scenes, and pedophilia/rape. It also edges on the darker side, so if you’re more into light-hearted novels, this is not likely the book for you.(SOME SPOILERS BELOW, NONE SIGNIFICANT)And what does the future hold? Well, there are issues with the weather, which end up being fairly significant. There is political upheaval. People are using plastic surgery to change their race (transracial), as well as their gender (which we are already doing now). And then there is the Trail. Or, as the PC phrase: the Trans-Arabian Linear Generator. The Trail captured my imagination entirely because it is a construct that occurred out of HydraCorp (sounds like something out of a comic book, eh? SHIELD anyone?) that is a sort of buyoant energy trail that goes across a part of the ocean. The Trail imports energy to a plant, via a superconductor made of metallic hydrogen, lighting up homes and doing other things that electricity does for us.There are people who have traveled across it, but, mysteriously, none have ever been heard of again. Throughout the book, there is some mention of seascapes, and I was curious if they were going to show some of those, but they only showed a small cluster of other people on the Trail.A lot of futuristic technology is mentioned, like the glotti (interestingly enough, the real glottis is a part of the larynx that houses the vocal cords and the opening between them), and in this story appears to be something that translates almost all languages. Then there’s the mitter, pozit, pod, etc. All of which you come to understand in due time. There are some really creative inventions that are around, many of which I would honestly love to have now.There is a kind of progressing madness to these characters. In one, the madness is evident pretty early on, and in the other, the madness is simply something that seems to come with age. But I did find each of them interesting because they are fairly rounded character. There is goodness and darkness in each of them, just as there is in every person. And that is something that a lot of novelists fail to capture well, so the rare times I come across characters like that, I am excited.
    • 4/5
      Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

      In the world of the future, two seemingly unconnected women embark on similar journeys. Meena, having been attacked and knowing someone is after her, heads west from India to Ethiopia, the country of her birth. Mariama runs away from home after a traumatic event and joins a shipping caravan headed across the Sarah to Ethiopia. Despite the parallels in their destination and circumstances, their travels aren't happening at the same time. But there is more of a connection between these two women and their processes of self-discovery than two women who don't know each other could ever realize.

      Wow. That's my honest initial reaction. This was great throughout; I finished it in less than two days and had a difficult time putting it down every time I needed to do so. There is just something so compelling about the voice of both of these characters (voices that are also incredibly distinct) that can pull a reader in and make you a part of this world. The very organic reveal of the connections between Meena and Mariama was also very well-written and refreshing. Even though I had some inklings of their connection a bit earlier, it didn't all play out exactly as I expected, which I appreciate (I'm not one for too much predictability in a story). Very highly recommended, even for those who may not typically be fans of science fiction. The story here is in the foreground and the characters are definitely the focus.

      Content Warning: There is a brief scene of sexual content that many may find objectionable. It's not graphic and I personally think it speaks to the character involved in a way that its inclusion is not at all gratuitous.
    • 4/5
      Ooh dang. I loved how strong and flawed the female characters were in this book! I loved the approach to gender and sexuality! The perspective and world building! I loved that I kept being wrong when I tried to guess the ending and that I was so wrapped up in it, I didn't feel compelled to keep checking my progress (a side effect I've found if I get even a little bored reading on my Kindle). I can't wait to see where Byrne takes us in her next book.
    • 4/5
      Well, I'm still processing this book and probably will be for a while but I know I liked it. This is a first novel and there are perhaps a few first novel foibles but it is hard hitting and well written. I can hardly wait to see what Monica Byrne comes up with next.Meena is a young Brahmin fleeing an attempt on her life. She goes to Mumbai and there learns about The Trail, a massive wave energy project in the Arabian Sea that stretches from India to Africa. Meena's parents were Indian doctors who were killed in Addis Ababa and she decides to walk the Trail all the way to Africa to find out what she can about their death. In alternating chapters we follow Mariama, a seven-year-old from West Africa who runs away from home and stows away in a convoy of trucks heading to Ethiopia. When she is found the boss decides to let her stay because he cannot send her back to poverty and slavery. Several days later a beautiful young woman joins the convoy and undertakes Mariama's education.Both their journeys are times of discovery and also times of mental instability. They have both experienced trauma and they don't always tell the truth. We know that there must be some link between these two main characters but it is not the one that seems obvious. Read carefully.Some reviewers have been distressed by all the sex in the book. I did not find it excessive or unnecessary; I felt it was a dimension of these characters that was probably due to the affection they missed growing up. I can see that it might bother some people though so I have given fair warning.From Monica Byrne's author picture she is neither African nor East Indian but I think she did an excellent job of portraying both ethnicities. It would be interesting to know what people of those backgrounds think. I predict that Monica Byrne will be a science fiction author to watch.
    • 3/5
      I received this ARC copy from Read It Forward. This was a thought provoking book and very much outside my usual books - and was really looking forward to the story. But there is just SO many issues covered, it was almost more than the story could handle. Add to that fact that the story is set in India and Africa (so readers who are unfamiliar with the language and geography my get a little lost) and is the story of two women - well a child and a woman - who each tell their stories and the reader really ha to work to appreciate the beauty and depth of the story. I found it easier to understand Mariana's story because she really only had one person that she talked to whereas Meena had many. Together there is so much pain that is never really expressed. This is one of those books that you need to read a few times to appreciate all that it entails.
    • 5/5
      I received a free kindle copy of The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne, published by Crown Publishing from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.I gave this intriguing, brilliantly written unusual novel which takes place in the future five stars. It was a page turner for me. There are blends of reality & imagination in the telling of the tale of two girls. It has a remarkable conclusion. I look forward to more writing from this author.
    • 5/5
      This was just outstanding, an impressive and faintly terrifying book that left me with massive book hangover. It has enough layers that I look forward to reading it again, but I enjoyed watching the contradicting and enmeshing stories spin out the first time, too - I don't know how coherent I can be about this book, it was too great.
    • 5/5
      This is where woman's literature and science fiction intersect. This story is set in the future, a future where climate change has increased the water level and made the world warmer, but those are things that are outside the story. They just sit in the background. Also in the background is a technological marvel for turning the kinetic energy of wave motion into electricity. This marvel makes the road one of our pair of intertwined women travels physically as she examines her past. The other of this pair travels a physical road. They are separated by distance and by time, one before the other, one involved in creating the circumstances of the other. At first I thought they were more physically related, like mother and daughter, but the relationship is more ethereal.I received this copy of the book free for review from Blogging for Books.
    • 3/5
      This is the story--told in alternating, first-person chapters--of Meena and Mariama, who are heading toward each other but separated by about 20 years. Meena is fleeing west after an apparent assassination attempt back in her Indian home, whereas Mariama is heading east from Mauritania, after witnessing an attack on her mother. Linking their stories is the Trail, or Trans-Arabian Linear Generator, a series of flat voltaic cells (scales) that harness energy from the waves in the Arabian Sea. The Trail is the one and only reason to shelve this book in the Science Fiction section. Otherwise, it's literary fiction. If you go into it expecting the latter type of ride, it's pretty good. The writing is lovely, for the most part. The sexuality is also generally handled well, except that rape is (yet again, and still, and my god, when are writers going to pick something else??) used as a plot device. The book telegraphs its metaphors a bit too loudly in places (yes, we know what snakes represent), robbing the ending of some of its punch. And I have to say it: the ending is confusing. I read it several times, and I'm stumped about what certain characters were meant to represent.In the end, I'm glad I read it. The parts where Meena is discarding excess baggage and getting down to her core were my favorite. I'd recommend this book to feminists, survival story fans, and anyone who enjoys good writing.
    • 4/5
      I'll add more to the review later. This was super great. I see why it co-won the Tiptree this year.
    • 2/5
      I was offered this one by the publicist and very nearly turned it down because I'm shallow and I judge books by covers.

      But then I read the blurb and that pulled me back in.

      "In a world where global power has shifted East and revolution is brewing, a young woman sets out from her home in India on a desperate, profound journey of escape and discovery."

      Sounds a bit dystopian, no? Ok, I'm in.

      And now I'm sitting here staring at the screen because I have absolutely no idea how to describe what I just read. Did I like it? Umm, kinda. Did I understand it? Nope.

      I think I'm punching above my weight with this one, to be honest. I just don't know what to make of it..

      I'm disappointed and a little beyond frustrated because in theory this should have been right up my alley. Futuristic/Dystopian with an unusual and interesting setting. But I just don't get it. It seemed too much like hard work.

      The world building is very well done and I really felt like I was on 'The Trail' with Meena and Mariama (although I still can't work out why anyone would want to make that journey) . Sometimes it was a little hard to work out which of the two I was with but by that point I was just trotting alongside, trying to keep up and going with the flow. I usually like a dual timeline/POV story but there's a LOT of jumping around going on and that makes it a bit hard to follow at times. Maybe that's the point...they're very similar?

      The language was sometimes a bit hard to warm to as a lot of it was unfamiliar to me and more than once I had to stop and roll the new words around for a bit to get a feel for them. (I think that's why I also don't read a lot of High Fantasy. I just can't get used to all the new names and language. But I digress...)

      The futuristic technology was very well done. It felt like the gizmo's and gadgets were things that we probably have the technology for today, it's just that nobody has the expertise to make them yet. Most of it is familiar whilst being unfamiliar at the same time. It's like telling someone in 1990 what an mp3 player with 32GB of memory is about. They know what a computer is but even the fast one's have like 256MB of memory so a little thing the size of your palm with soo much memory is just too much for them to take in. They're there...but not quite there.

      All in all I think my lukewarm reaction to this has more to do with me than with the book. The author is like a modern Margaret Attwood (if Margaret was edgier and gorier) and I think that maybe this will appeal to fans of The Handmaid's Tale, and similar stories. Personally I was never one of Margaret's fans :/

      It's a tough one. It's a good story and there's no doubt the author has a way with words but it just lost me early on and I never really managed to get back on board.

      If you're interested in this one then I'd definitely say to go for it. It's very different to a lot of what's out there already but I think it's possibly a marmite read so it's 50/50 on whether you get lucky. ( I'm on Team 'I Don't Like Marmite' :P )

      *Note - I was sent a complimentary copy of this title by the publisher*
    • 5/5
      As William Gibson famously said, "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." In 'The Girl in the Road,' Monica Byrne gives us a near-future in those parts of the world which have still not received their fair share of the 'distribution.'

      An enormous structure which generates power from wave energy has been built, stretching across the Arabian Sea from India to Africa. This feat of technology has been hyped by its creators as a power source - but to some, especially those who may not benefit from the generated energy or the associated revenue, the project's most significant feature is the possibility of a 'land bridge': a way to escape, undocumented, from one country to another. For this reason, people insist on calling it 'The Trail.'

      In one half of this story, we meet a woman who is drawn to the Trail for just this reason. Meena is an educated, seemingly privileged woman of Mumbai. However, she's clearly experiencing severe emotional trauma regarding an event involving her lover, Mohini, the details of which she is hiding from us. And it seems likely that on top of that trauma, she may be a disturbed individual to begin with.

      The other half of the story follows Mariama, a young girl in Mauritania who is on her own after escaping slavery with her mother. Attaching herself to two men she randomly meets, by stowing away on their transport convoy; she hopes to make it across the continent to Ethiopia and the hope of a better life. When another girl, the young woman Yemaya, joins the convoy, Mariama latches onto her with passionate hero-worship.

      Of course, the stories of Meena and Mariama will eventually meet, and it will be revealed how they are interconnected. Along the way, Byrne creates a gritty and vivid world, both believable and hallucinatory. The book relies very heavily on symbolism, and is involved with the inner states of both of our (very unreliable) narrators. At times, I found myself wishing it would concentrate just a bit more on the science-fiction elements of the book, because I found some of the ideas incredibly interesting and deserving of more exploration into how the described changes have affected society. However, then the book - which has set up our characters and situation as what seems to be a fairly standard, though original, future-adventure with two fairly sympathetic protagonists - left-turns into darkness.

      Revealing more would be spoilers, but let's just say that it borders on horror territory, and is not at all a comfortable or easy read. The reader's sympathies don't quite end up where you might expect. And for me, that's what pushed the book up into 5-star territory.

      My one complaint? The epilogue. It ends with an ambiguous meeting of two characters, whose identities are not fully revealed in the text. However, the way it's written, the reader feels like they ought to be able to figure out who they are. I had to go to an interview with the author to get the answer... I didn't find that last scene to be necessary.

      Overall, though, I was still extremely impressed with the book, and I look forward to seeing what this new author does next.
    • 4/5
      I began this book with trepidation after reading some early reviews, however, it didn't take me long to come to really enjoy the journey of the two main characters. The book opens jarringly and it took awhile to keep step with the pace. However, once both separate journeys began, I was hooked. I enjoyed the descriptions of varied landscapes, cultures, and new technologies. Both characters had some extreme emotional baggage and pain and with some of their behaviors I could empathize; with some I could not. Byrne is a talented writer and use of language is extraordinary. Would definately recommend.
    • 2/5
      I received this book as part of the LT early reviewer program. Set in the future, this story is a meshing of two different girls, both running from and toward their fates. The settings of India, the Trail, and Africa are nicely envisioned and the characters are interesting, but I really had a tough time with both voices used in alternating turns. I don't enjoy first person present tense and I am bothered by lack of quotations for dialogue. In addition to this, Meena's use of sex in every interaction got a little off putting after awhile. In a positive vein, it was a quick read and an interesting plot. All in all, probably not one I would recommend to many people.
    • 4/5
      I read this novel as an Early Reviewer for Library Thing.The plot involves two intertwining stories, both in a future time. One story concerns a young woman, Meena, who feels she in in danger. She escapes India for Africa by the Trail, a bridge spanning the Arabian sea. The other story relates the journey of a girl, Mariama, who is running away from home toward Ethiopia. On the way, she is guided and protected by a free spirited woman, Yemaya. The author, Monica Byrne, writes from the perspective of both characters through alternating chapters. She writes with a clear voice for each character, which was the strongest part of the novel. As the book proceeds, the reader is introduced to many parallels between Meena and Mariama leading to an interesting and, somewhat, surprising ending.I had two problems with the book. First, the beginning was too abrupt. It took me a few chapters to engage with the characters and the plot. The second problem was the use of sex in the book. I am not a prude and I have no problem with sex! However, in this novel, the sex was often violent and a little bit creepy at times.I give this book a lukewarm recommendation. If you like dystopian literature, you might want to give it a whirl.
    • 4/5
      Two women set out on journeys from different origins but end up in the same place. Meena, an educated Indian woman leaves India using a bridge of energy generating platforms that span the Arabian Sea. Miriama leaves her home in western Africa, joins a caravan, and heads east toward Ethiopia. Each woman has an encounter with a snake (not so subtle metaphor for a part of the male anatomy) and bear its reminder daily. Meena has a five pointed bite in the middle of her chest and Miriama ate a piece of sea snake that seems to take up residence in her gut and causes her pain.Meena makes her way mostly by herself. She leaves India fully supplied with desalting kits, a device that holds all her favorite books to read (and what a list that was!) and a tricky little shelter that not only keeps out the rain and sun but can also be submerged when storms hit. Miriama, on the other hand, has nothing to take with her and joins with two truck drivers and a beautiful woman who are all heading to Ethiopia. Along the way she learns to read and write and also learns a lot about people.The journey portion of the book was wonderful. Alternating between the two women, we learn a bit about the culture of India and Africa, and how these two cultures have intermingled. We get a glimpse of the fascinating technology of the near future (later half of the 21st century) but still see how these two geographical areas maintain a strong primitive feel. India still cannot shake the caste system and Africa still harbors the simmering disquiet between blacks and Arabic ethnicities. Where the women meet is in the center of a battle for Africa to reclaim its ability to support its own people where Indians have moved in to grow food to take back to India.It's hard to name what genre this story belongs to. The technology is there but does not take center stage. It's all about the women, their past, their journey, and their final encounter.
    • 3/5
      I found this book to be a very difficult read. There are two protagonists each one occupying a different timeline many years apart. Add to that a dystopian society, delusional characters, a world full of sci-fi inventions, violence and sex. I might have been able to handle all that but I found the narrative disjointed and incoherent.Sorry, but I do not recommend this one.
    • 4/5
      The Girl in the Road, by Monica Byrne, was really enjoyable for me. The way that the two separate stories came together and the startling imagery made a rich world made the book well worth the read.
    • 4/5
      This was a very compelling read. Shown from the POVs of two different women, it is a story of relationships, life, growth, and family. Set in the not-too-distant future, in India and Africa. I Loved the little hints, nudges, and implications... and how the story really wove together by the end.
    • 4/5
      I was very pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this book. I nearly stopped reading within the first section (Meena is hard to love), but was rewarded for my perseverance with the unfolding of Mariama's saga. I soon found myself unable to put the book down. As the story unfolds, Byrne paints a very rich, complex picture of two separate yet intwined protagonists. I saw this novel as a genre-transcending bildungsroman. I recommend readers refer to a map of the regions described in the book while reading in order to understamd the magnitude of the stories.
    • 4/5
      This was a great book!I had a difficult time explaining the book to friends who saw me reading _The Girl In The Road_. It's a genre-bender. Loosely classified as Sci-Fi, but with a folk tale twist. Hard to define. But the book was wonderful. I was sucked in to this beautiful, circuitous story with its complex female characters. There are recurring image of snakes weaving the twining tales of this heroine's quest together, as well as a study in the malleability of memory. An excellent read. Worthy of your time.
    • 4/5
      Meena's journey is transformative, at times hallucinatory, and also revelatory of her family's secrets as well of secrets of her own that she has suppressed. In many ways it reminded me of a SF version of Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Meena is also working through grief, but although she has her difficult aspects and her hard edges she also comes across as more capable and prepared, so I enjoyed this book much more. I'd like to have our library book club read this, after having read Wild as part of a community read earlier this spring.