Rachel Yoder

SHE did what any reasonable person would do and went to the library.

Maybe if I don’t move, he won’t notice me.

For it did feel as though the book was not a stagnant thing that existed but, rather, an entity unto itself that actually had things to say, and spoke, to her specifically.

She should distract herself. Read something. Anything to get her mind off of the disappointment and despair welling inside her.

An entire ruined kingdom as manifestation of one woman’s rage.

What must it be like to sit among women with the same animating vitality? To build vast empires and heretofore undreamt worlds? To control the exchange of ideas, the evolution of a society? She had never really been all that interested in traditional success or power, but for a moment she saw the appeal of it, of an empire ruled only by women

And once she was stripped of all she had been, of her career, her comely figure, her ambition, her familiar hormones, an anti-feminist conspiracy seemed not only plausible but nearly inevitable.

this thinking, that she was trapped, that it was all a plot, and she spiraled into an even worse mood, despite her efforts toward positive thought and the choice of happiness.

Her sense that society, adulthood, marriage, motherhood, all these things, were somehow masterfully designed to put a woman in her place and keep her there—this idea had begun to weigh on her.

Yes, certainly, her emerging rage was in part a by-product of physiological processes, but how could you not be pissed after having a baby?