Beautifully drawn story and characters, and a really compelling look at a community overtaken by a witch trial. Galchen is a wonderful writer, and my only wish was that I could connect emotionally with the story a bit more.

I think this book just wasn’t for me. I didn’t really like the style nor did I feel particularly moved by most of it. It felt really slow.

Galchen takes an interesting historical anecdote and dives into the interiority of Katharina Kepler, an old widow and mother of the Imperial Mathematician, who loves cows and speaking her mind. In the form of narrative dictated to her friend Simon (Katharina is illiterate, it's the early 1600s), court transcripts, letters, and an occasional interjections from Simon, this book tells the story of Katharina's accusations of witchcraft, her trial, and her life throughout. 

I adore the way Galchen plays with voice and modernity in this story, with humor and empathy. For subjects so sad- persecution, misogyny, ageism, war, poverty, loss- this book manages to contain a lightness that I found so refreshing. This was such an interesting world to be let into and I really enjoyed it.