The Cherry Robbers

By Sarai Walker

Book Overview

"Sarai Walker has done it again. With The Cherry Robbers she upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal." --Maria Semple

The highly anticipated second novel from Sarai Walker, following her "slyly subversive" (EW) cult-hit Dietland--a feminist gothic about the lone survivor of a cursed family of sisters, whose time may finally be up.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.

INSTEAD IT WAS THE LAST.

Iris Chapel and her five elegant sisters, all of them heiresses to the Chapel firearms fortune, live cloistered in a lavish Victorian mansion. Neglected by both a distant, workaholic father and a mentally troubled mother--who believes their home is haunted by the victims of Chapel weapons--the sisters have grown up with only each other for company. They long to escape the eerie fairy tale of their childhood and move forward into the modern world, but for young women in 1950s Connecticut, the only way out is through marriage.

Yet it soon becomes clear that for the Chapel sisters, marriage equals death.

When the eldest sister walks down the aisle, tragedy strikes. The bride dies mysteriously the very next day, leaving her family and the town in shock. But this is just the beginning of a chain of disasters that will make each woman wonder whether true love will kill her, too. Only Iris, the second-youngest, finds a way to escape--but can she outrun the family curse forever?

Sarai Walker, the acclaimed author of the cult-hit novel Dietland, building off the Gothic tradition of Shirley Jackson, brings to life this riveting, deliciously twisted feminist tale, a gorgeous and provocative page-turner about the legacy of male power and the cost of female freedom.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0358251877
• ISBN13: 9780358251873
• Release Date: May 2022
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker

I did not enjoy this book. I found the plot too loose and the characters cartoonish. Over all, it was weird and not in a good way. I sensed the author's anger throughout.

Creepy but...

The story as it unfolded with the tragedies that were the Chapel sisters was intriguing and once I got into it, I had to keep reading. I guess that is kind of morbid to really get into the story in the lead up to Astrid's wedding and then her very unexpected (for the family but not the reader) death. Plus the whole rhyme that the Chapel Sisters first get married and then buried is pretty darn cool. I am sad that the mystery was not explained about why the girls dies but it seemed like the author was saying that men will be the death of women, and suppress them into shells of their former selves. I don't think I agree with the message and that kinda threw me off the story a bit after awhile. Plus, you can write a good feminist book without making all men weak, jerks, or stupid. I think it would have been better if the balance had been there between men and women.