I Eat Cannibals

Throw the whole man away. Not one review I've read has talked about the husband. It doesn't matter that Natalie was originally the one who came up with the whole idea to live a pioneer style life. He participated. He enabled. He drugged her. Raped her. He is just as responsible for the child abuse as she is. Moreso, because this woman is terribly mentally ill and losing *years* of her life in a drug induced haze.

Natalie is not blameless. She is a horrible, horrible person who is continuing a cycle of misery and continuously performing her life. The book has SOMETHING to say about the performance of motherhood, wifehood, and being a woman. And how not performing perfectly leads to "punishment". It just says it very very badly.

I am AMAZED at all these reviews saying this is such a smart book, that's it's a great satire of Tradwives. It isn't.

It is not a good representation of a tradwife NOR religious culture in general. It feels like the author took all her facts from Fundiesnark. Like what the "angry women" of the book think Tradwives think like.

There is nowhere near enough criticism of the patriarchal systems that build this type of life, and the marketing for it. There is nowhere near enough focus on the fact that Caleb is extremely fucked up for participating in this nonsense, abusing his wife physically, and raping her. Maybe he gets his comeuppance. Idk.

You're supposed to be...enjoying? Natalie's "comeuppance" and I, a person capable of empathy, am not. All I feel for this horrible, miserable woman is absolute pity. And she is a horrible person. I think we all know someone like Natalie: someone who is unhappy with their life, who has unearned arrogance, and yet is extremely awkward. Who's whole life is a performance, and who is participating in a competition that you did not sign up for, yet they think you are participating in. She is nothing but utterly pathetic. And I pity her. I do not enjoy her suffering.

The author has, so far, also given us zero confirmation on Natalie's actual religion. She's not Mormon, and that's all we know. Even though she's clearly based on Ballerina Farm.

Finally, knowing that this is all happening bc of post partum psychosis instead of an actual consequence of Natalie's beliefs (aka, practicing what she preaches/the lifestyle she sells other women) just kind of feels...icky. There are great ideas dropped in the book about how living a lifestyle you don't believe in or marrying the wrong person after a short courtship can make you miserable, or the radicalization of men due to the manosphere online effects families, the child abuse in using your kids for content, and shit like that. But the author just...drops all of it in favor of gleefully "punishing" a woman suffering from, again, fucking post partum psychosis and a history of post partum depression.

I wanted to like this book so bad, but it just feels so...needlessly, gleefully mean. It reminds me entirely of the old Fundiesnark before it went private.