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Godshot
Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it’s an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to a cult leader named Pastor Vern for guidance. He promises, through secret “assignments,” to bring the rain everybody is praying for.
Lacey has no reason to doubt the pastor. But then her life explodes in a single unimaginable act of abandonment: her mother, exiled from the community for her sins, leaves Lacey and runs off with a man she barely knows. Abandoned and distraught, Lacey May moves in with her widowed grandma, Cherry, who is more concerned with her taxidermy mice collection than her own granddaughter. As Lacey May endures the increasingly appalling acts of men who want to write all the rules, and begins to uncover the full extent of Pastor Vern’s shocking plan to bring fertility back to the land, she decides she must go on a quest to find her mother, no matter what it takes. With her only guidance coming from the romance novels she reads and the unlikely companionship of the women who knew her mother, she must find her own way through unthinkable circumstances.
Possessed of an unstoppable plot and a brilliantly soulful voice, Godshot is a book of grit and humor and heart, a debut novel about female friendship and resilience, mother-loss and motherhood, and seeking salvation in unexpected places. It introduces a writer who gives Flannery O’Connor’s Gothic parables a Californian twist and who emerges with a miracle that is all her own.
Lacey has no reason to doubt the pastor. But then her life explodes in a single unimaginable act of abandonment: her mother, exiled from the community for her sins, leaves Lacey and runs off with a man she barely knows. Abandoned and distraught, Lacey May moves in with her widowed grandma, Cherry, who is more concerned with her taxidermy mice collection than her own granddaughter. As Lacey May endures the increasingly appalling acts of men who want to write all the rules, and begins to uncover the full extent of Pastor Vern’s shocking plan to bring fertility back to the land, she decides she must go on a quest to find her mother, no matter what it takes. With her only guidance coming from the romance novels she reads and the unlikely companionship of the women who knew her mother, she must find her own way through unthinkable circumstances.
Possessed of an unstoppable plot and a brilliantly soulful voice, Godshot is a book of grit and humor and heart, a debut novel about female friendship and resilience, mother-loss and motherhood, and seeking salvation in unexpected places. It introduces a writer who gives Flannery O’Connor’s Gothic parables a Californian twist and who emerges with a miracle that is all her own.
325 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 2020
780 people are currently reading
35604 people want to read
About the author
Chelsea Bieker
4 books821 followersChelsea Bieker is the author of three books, most recently the national bestselling novel, Madwoman, a Book of the Month club pick the New York Times calls “brilliant in its depiction of the long shadows cast by domestic violence.” Her first novel, Godshot, was longlisted for The Center For Fiction’s First Novel Prize and named a Barnes & Noble Pick of the Month. Her story collection, Heartbroke won the California Book Award and was a New York Times “Best California Book of 2022.” Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Marie Claire UK, People, The Cut, Wall Street Journal, No Tokens, and others. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, as well as residencies from MacDowell and Tin House. Raised in Hawai’i and California, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,542 reviews
April 8, 2020
“It hurts.”
“Get used to it,” she said. “Women have a long history of suffering.”
How to describe this book... well, it's a book about women and girls. About mothers and daughters, and the often difficult relationships between them-- about what it is to love so deeply a mother who has failed you. About religion and the way it can be used to control women's bodies. It feels dystopian due to the claustrophobic, stifling feel of the novel, but it's not really.
The White Oleander comparison is a good one. I also think this might be the kind of thing Elana K. Arnold would write if she turned her talents to adult fiction. A gritty, ugly, yet oddly empowering tale about girls. I'm also surprised no one has thought to pull out the ol' The Handmaid's Tale comparison. The religious zealotry, the single narrow perspective, the control, the idolization of pregnancy and pregnant women… I can see the parallels. Though the main difference here is that they didn’t have to overthrow an entire system and install a new government. It was simply the use of fear that got people to believe a charlatan was a messiah.
The book is set in the fictional town of Peaches, California, which is experiencing a devastating drought. The lush greenery of the past has been replaced by cracked earth, and the local residents, in their desperation, turn to Pastor Vern to guide them away from sin and towards a new world-- one where God rewards their faith with water. To do this, they are given assignments, but they are warned not to speak of their assignments with one another.
I don’t know why I loved her the way I did, in this aching way that could not be explained, other than she was my mother. There was no reason beyond that.
Lacey May's mother is everything to her; her whole world. So when she is exiled from the church, Lacey May cannot understand why she abandons her completely and runs away with a man. What follows is Lacey May's search for her mother and her search for the truth about the community in which she lives. When she is given her own assignment, the story takes a dark turn.
It's a bildungsroman of sorts. Lacey May is an extremely sympathetic character-- naive in a lot of ways (but without being irritatingly so) plus smart and resourceful in others. Her mother is a very complex woman. I spent the whole book stuck halfway between pity for her and anger at her selfishness. This is intentional, I feel. The author wants us to have the complicated relationship with her that Lacey May has.
For nothing could take away who my mother and I had been when we had loved each other, when we’d driven the town, heads back screaming along to her favorite songs, the way she looked so melancholy and how she’d rested her chin on my head while we slow danced in the living room to “Tears in Heaven.”
Beyond this, it is quite hard to explain all that the book does. Godshot takes on so many themes relating to girlhood and growing up and religion. One thing I love is when authors figure out how to tell old stories - in this case, about a difficult mother/daughter relationship - in new, creative ways.
Whether it is about love for a mother who doesn't deserve it, or love for a religion that is a lie, at its heart, it feels like this book is about how growing up and changing can mean opening your eyes and losing faith in the false gods you've always believed in. It's about looking back over everything that has happened to you and being able to reevaluate it through new eyes. And, I guess, it's a bittersweet story about letting go.
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April 27, 2020
4.25 stars
"Be filled with gratitude, ladies. You've been Godshot."
On the surface, Godshot appears to be about a cult. While the cult is a huge part of the storyline, this is really a book about mothers and daughters, loneliness, friendship, and love.
14-year-old Lacey May Herd is a true believer in GOTS, a religious cult located in Peaches, California. Peaches, once a thriving agricultural town known as “the Raisin Capital of the World,” is now barren, the land is dry, the crops are dead, the water is gone, and its residents are fleeing. But those who have stayed believe there is still hope that Vern, the leader of GOTS, will bring the rain back to Peaches.
When Lacey May’s mother is excommunicated from the cult, she abandons her daughter. Forced to live with her eccentric grandmother, who cares more about the cult and her “stuffed pets,” than her granddaughter's well-being, Lacey May struggles to find her place. When she becomes a prime member of Vern’s divine plan to make it rain, she is forced to face a brutal series of realities causing her to question all that she believed in.
I was really moved by Godshot. This is a dark and compelling read that focuses on gender roles, religion, faith, sexuality, sexual assault, and motherhood. I struggled a bit with Bieker’s writing style a little in the beginning, but once I got used to the cadence, I was completely enthralled and found myself transported to another world filled with quirky, fascinating characters.
There are a lot of vile characters featured in this book, but characters like Lacey May, Florin, and Daisy shined some light on the darkness. It was easy to root for Lacey May, especially when her circumstances go from bad to worse to horrendous to hopeful. She is very much a child, but at the same time, wise beyond her years. Her relationship with her mother is heartbreaking to read. There are some very difficult parts of this book to read, especially scenes involving rape and incest. The final sentences left me teary-eyed, yet hopeful for Lacey May
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher.
"Be filled with gratitude, ladies. You've been Godshot."
On the surface, Godshot appears to be about a cult. While the cult is a huge part of the storyline, this is really a book about mothers and daughters, loneliness, friendship, and love.
14-year-old Lacey May Herd is a true believer in GOTS, a religious cult located in Peaches, California. Peaches, once a thriving agricultural town known as “the Raisin Capital of the World,” is now barren, the land is dry, the crops are dead, the water is gone, and its residents are fleeing. But those who have stayed believe there is still hope that Vern, the leader of GOTS, will bring the rain back to Peaches.
When Lacey May’s mother is excommunicated from the cult, she abandons her daughter. Forced to live with her eccentric grandmother, who cares more about the cult and her “stuffed pets,” than her granddaughter's well-being, Lacey May struggles to find her place. When she becomes a prime member of Vern’s divine plan to make it rain, she is forced to face a brutal series of realities causing her to question all that she believed in.
I was really moved by Godshot. This is a dark and compelling read that focuses on gender roles, religion, faith, sexuality, sexual assault, and motherhood. I struggled a bit with Bieker’s writing style a little in the beginning, but once I got used to the cadence, I was completely enthralled and found myself transported to another world filled with quirky, fascinating characters.
There are a lot of vile characters featured in this book, but characters like Lacey May, Florin, and Daisy shined some light on the darkness. It was easy to root for Lacey May, especially when her circumstances go from bad to worse to horrendous to hopeful. She is very much a child, but at the same time, wise beyond her years. Her relationship with her mother is heartbreaking to read. There are some very difficult parts of this book to read, especially scenes involving rape and incest. The final sentences left me teary-eyed, yet hopeful for Lacey May
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher.
April 17, 2020
Going hiking ... will gather my thoughts ... and return to review soon.
But yikes.... I lost HOURS of sleep / will need to nap later!
I’m back!!! Incredible thought provoking moving affecting read!
Penetrating—Razor sharp—Disturbing—Edgy—Repressive—Terrifying—Scintillating.....transformative.....and painful depths of sadness that scratches continuously at your emotions.....*Debut*.
From the first page- to the last- ( crazy-addicting towards the end)....I couldn’t put this book down. I lost hours of sleep last night — it was worth it.
If this is the new ‘it’.....BUZZ book .....during the 2020/coronavirus year....I AGREE!
Lacey May had just turned fourteen years of age. She was still a board-chested child in the eyes of God and Pastor Vern, and so she prayed day and night for her blood to come—to flood the bed she shared with her mother.
Lacey May’s mother had “an assignment” ....( so much mystery as to what that assignment was: her mother didn’t tell her what it was)....but Lacey May’s two best friends, Denay and Taffy had their blood months before Lacy May did. They smiled and walked proud to church. Lacey May wanted to be part of the club....so she told Pastor Vern - the secret her mother had wanted her to keep..
Lacey May desperately wanted to be recognized for her faith. She wanted to be obedient in the eyes of God. She knew she was never to have ill feelings toward the church or of Pastor Vern. ( who likened himself to Jesus as an equal or even superior to him).
Vern had shown their town, ‘Peaches’, ( a fictional town outside of Fresno, California), what he could do- what his power could do....where drought was of serious concern in their little county—population
1,008, barely 3.2. Square miles in size—Vern summoned something from nothing....rain had finally flooded the streets....”no one was ever the same after that”.
Lacey May, also knew Pastor Vern was captivated by her mother, Louise’s beauty.
Lacey May wanted to be ‘captivated’ in the eyes of Pastor Vern. She was curious - she wanted “an assignment”, too.
While reading this book — I thought about the many young daughters - around the world - who ( when coming of age), often - even without consciously being aware - compared, competed, desired, to be like their mothers- or to be better then them. Many years of mis-understandings- assumptions - partial truths - between daughters and their mothers.
Daughters test their mothers- tested what separated them from the greater world’s messages ( but with limited eyes - with naivety- not a full plate of truth). It’s as if the mystery of life itself leads to the possibility of a dangerous unknown path.
It was so easy to see the inner voice of Lacey May. She was just beginning - ( while looking back at her childhood)> all of only fourteen years behind her - to draw conclusions about her mother. I wondered if Lacy May’s views of her mother were going to help her grow into an independent strong young adult - or - would she be damaged by them.
“And who is my mother then?
She was a day late and a dollar short, a water bottle of gin in her purse, in her glove box, a waitressing job at the Grape Tray, and one lousy boyfriend after another who sat potbellied and spread-legged in our kitchen, yellowed fingers ashing cigarettes and two chili cans”. ”And me?”
“I was only her bastard daughter, unsaved and seven years old, daddyless and dirt-kneed, whole mind a sin plain, my fingers pocketing gumdrops from the candy store, eyes watching cartoons of coyotes dropping anvils on heads. Someone I can hardly remember. But thank the good God, I learned that day, the past was of no matter. The rain soaked my sundress and Vern blessed us out of that life and into another”.
“Vern wanted the women pretty because everything Godsaved was beautiful. He wanted the women pretty maybe, I wondered sometimes but did not say, to attract infidels to the church, to dangle a prize to be awarded on the other side of conversion. Nevertheless, it was some thing of evil to make a man stumble”.
“Women, God created beauty.
Women, lead men not into temptation”.
“But what was my mother to do with your beauty? She couldn’t pray it away. It came up from inside her. It was not just the arrangement of eyes and nose and mouth. It was something unnameable that could not be achieved with make up or manipulation of hairstyle. She had a gap between her front teeth that she considered an imperfection, but it was wet through her beauty over the edge. It drove men crazy”.
“My mother never liked to talk about how she was before transformation. After my father left, her drinking had taken her over like flames through a house. I remember feeling scared for us sometimes, when she drove down the road swerving and breaking late. When she would close her self in our room for days, silent, and I sleep on the couch watching television late into the night, M. A.S.H and I LOVE LUCY. For a while she had a boyfriend who didn’t wear pants around our apartment and I could see his flesh poking out from under his T-shirts. His eyes were always bleary, and he gave me sapphire earrings one night while my mother was passed out. He had pulled me close to him so he could put them on me, only to find I didn’t have pierced ears. He bent me over his lap that night. He pierced them with the dull poke of the earrings themselves while I called out for my mother and she never came. what a pretty little girl I was, he said, when it was over. And now, looking at Pastor Vern, my heart surged with affection thinking of that time, for it was he who had delivered us out of it”.
“The conditions of deliverance were these: one, that my mother never drink again; two, that she remain chaste, a bride to the church”.
“How I wanted to fix it for her. How I wanted the world to be good enough so she wouldn’t have to feel it’s rough edges. If someone could just see her when she was at her best, the way she was in the morning back then, getting ready for the day, dancing and singing, the soft dander of her cheek. The way her neck looked when she tilted it back in the car and sang ‘Great American Cowboy’, along with the Sons of the San Joaquin. I didn’t know what to say to fix it, to make her eyes go clear, to make her steps sure and straight, her breath her own without the bite of alcohol on it”.
“It hurts”.
“Get used to it, she said. Women have a long history of suffering”.
“Her mother was the design of sin: to be the most attractive thing in the room”.
“Vern separated the girls by blood. Girls who had it and were under the marrying age of eighteen were ready for the true mission, and were set apart”.
Lacey May’s desperation and desire for guidance - lead her towards temptation > Pastor Vern.....a cult leader.
Vern promised her, and other young girls salvation, love, and even rain, through secret assignments.
Then...the unthinkable happened : Lacey May’s mother, Louise, ran off with a man....abandoning her daughter.
Lacey - motherless - moves in with her widowed Grandmother, Cherry. ( not exactly a ‘cherry’ supported role model either)....
Grandma Cherry said to Lacey: “A girl Can be fine without a mother”. But Lacey’s body told her that wasn’t true.
Lacey missed her mother desperately.
“My mother had said being pregnant was like an alien takeover. She hated it. The way I had stretched and rolled inside her. She said she imagined snakes fighting in there, and that sometimes all she could do was sleep to keep herself from thinking too hard about it. The fact that soon someone would need need need her. She said the thought of a baby repulsed her, all the crying in the night, all the foolish wanting”.
“But was being needed a bad thing? My disease of loneliness wondered if a baby might just be the cure. For I could not yet fathom all this baby would mean to me, but one thing was now certain: I was no longer alone, and never would be again “.
“Would I be able to mother myself now? Would I no longer need her if I ‘was’ her?”
“At church Vern wore a robe of pewter. There was a
somberness about him, a heft in his usually perked shoulders. But his hair had been freshly curled, the ringlets cinched up closer to his collarbones than usual, and the spray holding them was flecked with glitter”.
“Meekness is valued, ladies, I understand your hesitance, and that’s good, actually, because you won’t be telling anyone about this for a while. For now this is a secret between you and God and your pastor. Think of it as a precious flower pressed in the middle of your Bible, dying.
You wouldn’t want to take it out too soon”.
“A secret. He’d had a secret with my mother, too”.
“In the coming months your bodies will bloom forward and there will be a time of celebration. Be filled with gratitude, ladies. You’ve been Godshot”.
Lacey May wanted to be recognized for her faith. She was obedient. And she wanted to be obedient— but she wondered why God wanted all the girls pregnant?
“Children unite the body”.
Children ensure another generation of soldiers. Parentless children who are tended to and cared for by everyone, who belong to the church itself, are the most useful gems”.
“A boyfriend was trash, however attractive, that would one day have to be taken out. And in the eyes of God a marriage meant a cemented union that no one could come in between. A marriage to a man would take me out of my marriage to the church”.
“A marriage was what I needed”.
“I would not be Godshot. The child would just be a common shame, the result of a sin with an infidel, a couple who were on uncareful but who were doing their best to make things right”.
Resentments, and all that Lacey’s mother had deprived her of, were thoughts that shifted to simply missing her.
Lacey knew that God was bigger than her own understanding, and the thought was a sudden comfort.
If after all her believing years still meant that she didn’t understand God, then that meant there was a life outside of her own, and that there were other things she still didn’t understand, but could come to know if she wanted.
She let the possibility of the world slowly unfurl before her.
“The loneliness of a monster can only become sentimental after it is dead”.
This was such an addictive read - a harrowing look at religion, sexuality, fragility, — and most the vulnerability of women coming of age.
Lacey May was a young girl I rooted for - her observations were judicious - but also understandably conflicted.
It’s not easy to learn about life, love, faith, acceptance, and forgiveness ....and how we each come to strengthen our own beliefs - even in the best of functional loving families - but to have to grow up with such devilishly absurdity as she did....was strange beyond strange...heartbreaking....and repressive.
This book was startling engrossing - suspenseful- conscience-ridden - filled with sublimity and sin.....with a powerful ending that left me tearful but hopeful.
Thank You Netgalley, Catapult Publishing, and Chelsea Bieker ( congrats to Chelsea)....This debut novel should make her an overnight readers-household name.
But yikes.... I lost HOURS of sleep / will need to nap later!
I’m back!!! Incredible thought provoking moving affecting read!
Penetrating—Razor sharp—Disturbing—Edgy—Repressive—Terrifying—Scintillating.....transformative.....and painful depths of sadness that scratches continuously at your emotions.....*Debut*.
From the first page- to the last- ( crazy-addicting towards the end)....I couldn’t put this book down. I lost hours of sleep last night — it was worth it.
If this is the new ‘it’.....BUZZ book .....during the 2020/coronavirus year....I AGREE!
Lacey May had just turned fourteen years of age. She was still a board-chested child in the eyes of God and Pastor Vern, and so she prayed day and night for her blood to come—to flood the bed she shared with her mother.
Lacey May’s mother had “an assignment” ....( so much mystery as to what that assignment was: her mother didn’t tell her what it was)....but Lacey May’s two best friends, Denay and Taffy had their blood months before Lacy May did. They smiled and walked proud to church. Lacey May wanted to be part of the club....so she told Pastor Vern - the secret her mother had wanted her to keep..
Lacey May desperately wanted to be recognized for her faith. She wanted to be obedient in the eyes of God. She knew she was never to have ill feelings toward the church or of Pastor Vern. ( who likened himself to Jesus as an equal or even superior to him).
Vern had shown their town, ‘Peaches’, ( a fictional town outside of Fresno, California), what he could do- what his power could do....where drought was of serious concern in their little county—population
1,008, barely 3.2. Square miles in size—Vern summoned something from nothing....rain had finally flooded the streets....”no one was ever the same after that”.
Lacey May, also knew Pastor Vern was captivated by her mother, Louise’s beauty.
Lacey May wanted to be ‘captivated’ in the eyes of Pastor Vern. She was curious - she wanted “an assignment”, too.
While reading this book — I thought about the many young daughters - around the world - who ( when coming of age), often - even without consciously being aware - compared, competed, desired, to be like their mothers- or to be better then them. Many years of mis-understandings- assumptions - partial truths - between daughters and their mothers.
Daughters test their mothers- tested what separated them from the greater world’s messages ( but with limited eyes - with naivety- not a full plate of truth). It’s as if the mystery of life itself leads to the possibility of a dangerous unknown path.
It was so easy to see the inner voice of Lacey May. She was just beginning - ( while looking back at her childhood)> all of only fourteen years behind her - to draw conclusions about her mother. I wondered if Lacy May’s views of her mother were going to help her grow into an independent strong young adult - or - would she be damaged by them.
“And who is my mother then?
She was a day late and a dollar short, a water bottle of gin in her purse, in her glove box, a waitressing job at the Grape Tray, and one lousy boyfriend after another who sat potbellied and spread-legged in our kitchen, yellowed fingers ashing cigarettes and two chili cans”. ”And me?”
“I was only her bastard daughter, unsaved and seven years old, daddyless and dirt-kneed, whole mind a sin plain, my fingers pocketing gumdrops from the candy store, eyes watching cartoons of coyotes dropping anvils on heads. Someone I can hardly remember. But thank the good God, I learned that day, the past was of no matter. The rain soaked my sundress and Vern blessed us out of that life and into another”.
“Vern wanted the women pretty because everything Godsaved was beautiful. He wanted the women pretty maybe, I wondered sometimes but did not say, to attract infidels to the church, to dangle a prize to be awarded on the other side of conversion. Nevertheless, it was some thing of evil to make a man stumble”.
“Women, God created beauty.
Women, lead men not into temptation”.
“But what was my mother to do with your beauty? She couldn’t pray it away. It came up from inside her. It was not just the arrangement of eyes and nose and mouth. It was something unnameable that could not be achieved with make up or manipulation of hairstyle. She had a gap between her front teeth that she considered an imperfection, but it was wet through her beauty over the edge. It drove men crazy”.
“My mother never liked to talk about how she was before transformation. After my father left, her drinking had taken her over like flames through a house. I remember feeling scared for us sometimes, when she drove down the road swerving and breaking late. When she would close her self in our room for days, silent, and I sleep on the couch watching television late into the night, M. A.S.H and I LOVE LUCY. For a while she had a boyfriend who didn’t wear pants around our apartment and I could see his flesh poking out from under his T-shirts. His eyes were always bleary, and he gave me sapphire earrings one night while my mother was passed out. He had pulled me close to him so he could put them on me, only to find I didn’t have pierced ears. He bent me over his lap that night. He pierced them with the dull poke of the earrings themselves while I called out for my mother and she never came. what a pretty little girl I was, he said, when it was over. And now, looking at Pastor Vern, my heart surged with affection thinking of that time, for it was he who had delivered us out of it”.
“The conditions of deliverance were these: one, that my mother never drink again; two, that she remain chaste, a bride to the church”.
“How I wanted to fix it for her. How I wanted the world to be good enough so she wouldn’t have to feel it’s rough edges. If someone could just see her when she was at her best, the way she was in the morning back then, getting ready for the day, dancing and singing, the soft dander of her cheek. The way her neck looked when she tilted it back in the car and sang ‘Great American Cowboy’, along with the Sons of the San Joaquin. I didn’t know what to say to fix it, to make her eyes go clear, to make her steps sure and straight, her breath her own without the bite of alcohol on it”.
“It hurts”.
“Get used to it, she said. Women have a long history of suffering”.
“Her mother was the design of sin: to be the most attractive thing in the room”.
“Vern separated the girls by blood. Girls who had it and were under the marrying age of eighteen were ready for the true mission, and were set apart”.
Lacey May’s desperation and desire for guidance - lead her towards temptation > Pastor Vern.....a cult leader.
Vern promised her, and other young girls salvation, love, and even rain, through secret assignments.
Then...the unthinkable happened : Lacey May’s mother, Louise, ran off with a man....abandoning her daughter.
Lacey - motherless - moves in with her widowed Grandmother, Cherry. ( not exactly a ‘cherry’ supported role model either)....
Grandma Cherry said to Lacey: “A girl Can be fine without a mother”. But Lacey’s body told her that wasn’t true.
Lacey missed her mother desperately.
“My mother had said being pregnant was like an alien takeover. She hated it. The way I had stretched and rolled inside her. She said she imagined snakes fighting in there, and that sometimes all she could do was sleep to keep herself from thinking too hard about it. The fact that soon someone would need need need her. She said the thought of a baby repulsed her, all the crying in the night, all the foolish wanting”.
“But was being needed a bad thing? My disease of loneliness wondered if a baby might just be the cure. For I could not yet fathom all this baby would mean to me, but one thing was now certain: I was no longer alone, and never would be again “.
“Would I be able to mother myself now? Would I no longer need her if I ‘was’ her?”
“At church Vern wore a robe of pewter. There was a
somberness about him, a heft in his usually perked shoulders. But his hair had been freshly curled, the ringlets cinched up closer to his collarbones than usual, and the spray holding them was flecked with glitter”.
“Meekness is valued, ladies, I understand your hesitance, and that’s good, actually, because you won’t be telling anyone about this for a while. For now this is a secret between you and God and your pastor. Think of it as a precious flower pressed in the middle of your Bible, dying.
You wouldn’t want to take it out too soon”.
“A secret. He’d had a secret with my mother, too”.
“In the coming months your bodies will bloom forward and there will be a time of celebration. Be filled with gratitude, ladies. You’ve been Godshot”.
Lacey May wanted to be recognized for her faith. She was obedient. And she wanted to be obedient— but she wondered why God wanted all the girls pregnant?
“Children unite the body”.
Children ensure another generation of soldiers. Parentless children who are tended to and cared for by everyone, who belong to the church itself, are the most useful gems”.
“A boyfriend was trash, however attractive, that would one day have to be taken out. And in the eyes of God a marriage meant a cemented union that no one could come in between. A marriage to a man would take me out of my marriage to the church”.
“A marriage was what I needed”.
“I would not be Godshot. The child would just be a common shame, the result of a sin with an infidel, a couple who were on uncareful but who were doing their best to make things right”.
Resentments, and all that Lacey’s mother had deprived her of, were thoughts that shifted to simply missing her.
Lacey knew that God was bigger than her own understanding, and the thought was a sudden comfort.
If after all her believing years still meant that she didn’t understand God, then that meant there was a life outside of her own, and that there were other things she still didn’t understand, but could come to know if she wanted.
She let the possibility of the world slowly unfurl before her.
“The loneliness of a monster can only become sentimental after it is dead”.
This was such an addictive read - a harrowing look at religion, sexuality, fragility, — and most the vulnerability of women coming of age.
Lacey May was a young girl I rooted for - her observations were judicious - but also understandably conflicted.
It’s not easy to learn about life, love, faith, acceptance, and forgiveness ....and how we each come to strengthen our own beliefs - even in the best of functional loving families - but to have to grow up with such devilishly absurdity as she did....was strange beyond strange...heartbreaking....and repressive.
This book was startling engrossing - suspenseful- conscience-ridden - filled with sublimity and sin.....with a powerful ending that left me tearful but hopeful.
Thank You Netgalley, Catapult Publishing, and Chelsea Bieker ( congrats to Chelsea)....This debut novel should make her an overnight readers-household name.
May 6, 2020
What I liked about this book:
The publisher's blurb
What I disliked about this book:
Everything else
I don't usually rate a book that I DNF but will make an exception with this one. Why?
1) Because it's just so god-awful that it doesn't deserve its high rating on here. In fact, I wonder if most of those 5 star ratings are from the author's friends, because I sincerely do not know how it could otherwise be so high. Then again those equally god-awful Fifty Shades books had a lot of fans too, so maybe it's just me.
2) I'm rating this because, having suffered 123 miserable pages, I feel I deserve some credit for the time wasted. It shouldn't count as a book read, but unfortunately giving it a star marks it as "read" . Again though, I need something for the time I wasted on this crap.
Bad writing, poor character development, the most boring plot I've seen in a long time. I mean, nothing happens in those 123 pages except the mother runs off with some dude she met during her phone sex job (where women say stuff like, and I quote, "Your balls are as soft as a little bird") and the teenage girl gets her period. Or in the book's parlance, her "blood". Really? Who the hell talks like that anymore?? Yeh, so she's in some weird cult, but c'mon!
So she "gets her blood" and is given her "assignment" from the leader of the cult. Anyone wanna take a stab as to what that might be? Ding, ding, ding! Yes, you got it! Her assignment is to have sex with some disgusting pervert man in the church. Well, I saw that coming from page one and it took 100 bloody boring pages to work up to just that.
123 pages and that's it. The dialogue is stilted and dumbed down, the same stuff said over and over and over until you just want to rip off your mask and scream. Oh, that's right, I'm at home. I CAN take off my mask.
Whew, that feels better!
The publisher's blurb writer should win an award for making this garbage sound like a terrific novel. The blurb really is the only good thing about it.
Now to get this crap off my poor Kindle....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2020
4.5
A really good first novel!
There is a drought going on in Peaches, California.
There is also a religious cult in that town, led by Pastor Vern.
14 yr old Lacey and her alcoholic mother, well..actually her whole family are members of this cult.
Her mother abandons her, she’s stuck in this cult.
Pastor Vern comes up with a secret “assignment” given to the teenagers in this cult that once it is completed, is supposed to make the rains fall in the town again.
This is a horrific assignment!
I loved Lacey’s character and it was maddening to see all she had to go through but what a journey.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!
A really good first novel!
There is a drought going on in Peaches, California.
There is also a religious cult in that town, led by Pastor Vern.
14 yr old Lacey and her alcoholic mother, well..actually her whole family are members of this cult.
Her mother abandons her, she’s stuck in this cult.
Pastor Vern comes up with a secret “assignment” given to the teenagers in this cult that once it is completed, is supposed to make the rains fall in the town again.
This is a horrific assignment!
I loved Lacey’s character and it was maddening to see all she had to go through but what a journey.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!
May 12, 2020
I decided to request this one after seeing a few reviews from my friends and dived into it right away, looking for a deep connection to a story and the characters. I started to get a little worried about the way it started and wondered what I got myself into. I hung in there and was rewarded with an unquie look at the bond between our main character 14-year-old Lacey and her mother.
The story is set in drought-stricken cult ran town by Pastor Vern, who preys on the vulnerabilities of the members, especially with the children. He promises them rain for doing assignments that I felt were too bizarre by the way the story was told, and the cult storyline wasn't a convincing part of the story for me. I did read this one on my own, so I didn't get the chance to talk about that with anyone. Maybe I would have felt differently after chatting about that.
What did create that emotional response I was looking for was with Lacey's growth throughout the story. Lacey's mother is banished from the community. Instead of Lacey holding feelings of abandonment and anger towards her mother she becomes determined to find her. Lacey develops some interesting friendships and through some unquie women, she learns something about herself and sees her mother differently through them.
The story unravels slowly and, at times, almost lost me, however, Lacey's observation of the world around her and her sense of humour under all the pressure and her will to survive kept me hanging in there.
I received a copy from the publisher on NetGalley
The story is set in drought-stricken cult ran town by Pastor Vern, who preys on the vulnerabilities of the members, especially with the children. He promises them rain for doing assignments that I felt were too bizarre by the way the story was told, and the cult storyline wasn't a convincing part of the story for me. I did read this one on my own, so I didn't get the chance to talk about that with anyone. Maybe I would have felt differently after chatting about that.
What did create that emotional response I was looking for was with Lacey's growth throughout the story. Lacey's mother is banished from the community. Instead of Lacey holding feelings of abandonment and anger towards her mother she becomes determined to find her. Lacey develops some interesting friendships and through some unquie women, she learns something about herself and sees her mother differently through them.
The story unravels slowly and, at times, almost lost me, however, Lacey's observation of the world around her and her sense of humour under all the pressure and her will to survive kept me hanging in there.
I received a copy from the publisher on NetGalley
May 7, 2021
Take a deep breath before you begin reading this dark, dazzling and deliciously entrancing novel, for it won’t be long before you’ll holding your breath in anticipation of what lies waiting in Peaches, California for you.
’To have an assignment, Pastor Vern said, you had to be a woman of blood. You had to be a man of deep voice and Adam’s apple. And you should never reveal your assignment to another soul, for assignments were a holy bargaining between you and your pastor and God Himself. To speak of them directly would be to mar God’s voice, turn the supernatural human, and ruin it. So not even my own mother could tell me what her assignment was that unseasonably warm winter, wouldn’t tell me months into it when spring lifted up more dry heat around us, and everything twisted and changed forever.’
’I imagined her floating above our beloved town of Peaches, dropping God glitter over us like an angel, summoning the rain to cure our droughted fields. I imagined all these things with a burn of jealousy, for I had not received my woman’s blessing yet, the rush of blood between my legs that would signify me as useful. I’d just turned fourteen but was still a board-chested child in the eyes of God and Pastor Vern, and so I prayed day and night for the blood to come to me in a river, to flood the bed I shared with my mother. Then I would be ready. I could have an assignment too.’
If you took the real story that made headline news in 2008 of Warren Jeffs and his YFZ Ranch and scaled it down in size, and then shared the story through the eyes of one of those young women, and you blended it with a dash of the young women in Emma Cline’s Girls, you’d come close to an idea of this, but throw in the unceasing drought, this community’s lack of water leading to baptism by immersion in cola, along with the community’s desperation building. Add young, vulnerable, Lacey May, whose mother has just been driven out of the Gifts of the Spirit Church as your narrator in this coming-of-age debut novel, and you’ve got Godshot.
Of course there’s more to this story, but you’ll want to experience this story yourself, a story with themes of extremist religions, socially constructed gender inequality, and a bit about the current and future state of the environment.
In a year so relatively new, I am amazed by how many extremely gifted debut authors’ works I’ve read. This is another one you won’t forget.
Published: 17 Apr 2020
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Catapult
April 18, 2020
I’m absolutely one of those people who judges a book by its cover, for better or for worse. This is going to be one of those covers that either draws people in or repels them away. Something about the unapologetic use of glimmering, gold glitter and the evocation of God on the title is going to be too captivating for some to ignore. It almost feels gratuitous, but in a way you just have to be a part of.
While I’m sure Chelsea Bieker also loves glitter (according to her Instagram, she most definitely does), this cover also perfectly encapsulates the mindset surrounding a cult-like personality. You’re reeled in with the promise of riches or glamour, only to discover what’s being offered is just the same fool’s gold that’s been dug out of the craft store bargain bin. All this to say: don’t let this cover deceive you. It’s anything but the light or glitzy novel you might be expecting. This is a story about female power and breaking free of constricting community and family ties. It’s relentless and strong in a way that only a story about girls and women could be.
In Godshot, Bieker shines her golden spotlight on parts of American society that the majority of us passively choose to ignore. Religious leaders that can act with impunity, domestic violence hidden behind closed doors, child abuse, child brides, devastating poverty and lack of proper education—these are all things we don’t hesitate to decry in so-called ‘3rd-world’ nations, but neglect to address at home. They’re woven into the fabric of our country, as American as apple pie, and yet just enough obscured from our day-to-day that we can convince ourselves that they don’t exist.
But they do. Characters like the tenacious Lacey May, her susceptible mother, Louise, and the rest of the inhabitants of the fictional town of Peaches, California represent real, living people. I haven’t read a lot of the books this one is being compared to, The Girls or White Oleander, but for ones I have, like The Handmaid's Tale, I see it to a point. But I think the story here goes beyond the circumstances these female characters are thrust into. At the heart of this book are the ways the women close to us can lift us up out of hardship, and sometimes how they let us down. It’s complicated and can be difficult to navigate, but those relationships are almost always worth pursuing.
I’m excited to see more from Chelsea Bieker. And if I’m not mistaken, there was an Easter Egg for her upcoming book, Cowboys and Angels, hidden in Godshot. It sounds like something that would be right up Lacey May’s alley!
TW: Sexual assault against minor(s); religious cults
*Thanks to Catapult & Netgalley for an advance copy!
While I’m sure Chelsea Bieker also loves glitter (according to her Instagram, she most definitely does), this cover also perfectly encapsulates the mindset surrounding a cult-like personality. You’re reeled in with the promise of riches or glamour, only to discover what’s being offered is just the same fool’s gold that’s been dug out of the craft store bargain bin. All this to say: don’t let this cover deceive you. It’s anything but the light or glitzy novel you might be expecting. This is a story about female power and breaking free of constricting community and family ties. It’s relentless and strong in a way that only a story about girls and women could be.
In Godshot, Bieker shines her golden spotlight on parts of American society that the majority of us passively choose to ignore. Religious leaders that can act with impunity, domestic violence hidden behind closed doors, child abuse, child brides, devastating poverty and lack of proper education—these are all things we don’t hesitate to decry in so-called ‘3rd-world’ nations, but neglect to address at home. They’re woven into the fabric of our country, as American as apple pie, and yet just enough obscured from our day-to-day that we can convince ourselves that they don’t exist.
But they do. Characters like the tenacious Lacey May, her susceptible mother, Louise, and the rest of the inhabitants of the fictional town of Peaches, California represent real, living people. I haven’t read a lot of the books this one is being compared to, The Girls or White Oleander, but for ones I have, like The Handmaid's Tale, I see it to a point. But I think the story here goes beyond the circumstances these female characters are thrust into. At the heart of this book are the ways the women close to us can lift us up out of hardship, and sometimes how they let us down. It’s complicated and can be difficult to navigate, but those relationships are almost always worth pursuing.
I’m excited to see more from Chelsea Bieker. And if I’m not mistaken, there was an Easter Egg for her upcoming book, Cowboys and Angels, hidden in Godshot. It sounds like something that would be right up Lacey May’s alley!
TW: Sexual assault against minor(s); religious cults
*Thanks to Catapult & Netgalley for an advance copy!
May 2, 2020
What an interesting and disturbing novel “Godshot” is. Author Chelsea Bieker explores cult religion, poverty, desperation, ignorance, and sexuality in a sort of feminist and coming-of-age story. There are many ideas considered in this, at times, deeply disturbing novel.
Lacey May is the fourteen-year-old narrator who is one resilient girl. She begins informing the reader that Pastor Vern has proclaimed that to have an assignment, a girl has to be a woman of blood. Yikes. And you cannot reveal your assignment to another soul. Right from the start one knows this will not end in a healthy manner.
Pastor Vern is your standard creepy cult leader, although it’s difficult to understand how he collected his followers since Bieker expertly writes him as slime. The setting is in the always drought-ridden California valley where fires are rampant, and rain is nil. Vern “made” it rain in the valley thereby gaining his followers. Since that initial Vern-induced-rain, it hasn’t rained in years, and the followers are becoming desperate. Vern promises his believers that rain will come when his devout follow his rules.
Lacey May becomes a woman of blood and her assignment is disturbing. At the same time, her mother abandons her for a “turquoise Cowboy” leaving Lacey with her certifiably crazy grandmother.
In an NPR interview, Bieker stated that her own mother abandoned her when she was nine, leaving her with her born-again Christian grandparents. Bieker wanted to explore the dangers of religious groupthink and religious programming, along with parental abandonment and the never-ending search for why a mother would leave her child. Bieker also wanted to deliberate on how people want to do something with religion, appeasing a God, rather than exploring the science behind their problems. She wanted the reader to consider the danger of blind obedience; to use logic in life decisions.
Bieker adds a feminism touch when Lacey May finds help in an unlikely source: a female run phone sex operation. Through that relationship, Lacey learns about her body and sexual discovery.
What also makes this a consuming read is Bieker’s addition of humor in her story. These characters are odd, and some are funny in their quirky ways. It’s situational comedy at times of darkness.
This isn’t a read for everyone. It’s disturbing in that it’s reality fiction in so many ways. Cult leaders and desperate people combined form an unholy mix.
Lacey May is the fourteen-year-old narrator who is one resilient girl. She begins informing the reader that Pastor Vern has proclaimed that to have an assignment, a girl has to be a woman of blood. Yikes. And you cannot reveal your assignment to another soul. Right from the start one knows this will not end in a healthy manner.
Pastor Vern is your standard creepy cult leader, although it’s difficult to understand how he collected his followers since Bieker expertly writes him as slime. The setting is in the always drought-ridden California valley where fires are rampant, and rain is nil. Vern “made” it rain in the valley thereby gaining his followers. Since that initial Vern-induced-rain, it hasn’t rained in years, and the followers are becoming desperate. Vern promises his believers that rain will come when his devout follow his rules.
Lacey May becomes a woman of blood and her assignment is disturbing. At the same time, her mother abandons her for a “turquoise Cowboy” leaving Lacey with her certifiably crazy grandmother.
In an NPR interview, Bieker stated that her own mother abandoned her when she was nine, leaving her with her born-again Christian grandparents. Bieker wanted to explore the dangers of religious groupthink and religious programming, along with parental abandonment and the never-ending search for why a mother would leave her child. Bieker also wanted to deliberate on how people want to do something with religion, appeasing a God, rather than exploring the science behind their problems. She wanted the reader to consider the danger of blind obedience; to use logic in life decisions.
Bieker adds a feminism touch when Lacey May finds help in an unlikely source: a female run phone sex operation. Through that relationship, Lacey learns about her body and sexual discovery.
What also makes this a consuming read is Bieker’s addition of humor in her story. These characters are odd, and some are funny in their quirky ways. It’s situational comedy at times of darkness.
This isn’t a read for everyone. It’s disturbing in that it’s reality fiction in so many ways. Cult leaders and desperate people combined form an unholy mix.
May 4, 2020
3.5 stars
This is not the first time recently that I came around to liking a book by the time I finished it. Godshot takes place in Peaches, California. There is a terrible drought in Peaches, and many of its residents are in the grip of a cult led by Vern, who promises that the drought will end if the members of the cult do his bidding. His idea of what the members should do is pretty outlandish and brutal. Lacey May is 14 years old, and it seems that nothing good has ever happened to her. Her mother is an alcoholic who has had a series of bad boyfriends. The cult was meant to be Lacey May and her mother's salvation, but it doesn't do much to improve Lacey May's life. Lacey May starts off as a believer but her eyes gradually open to what is really happening in her community. There's a surreal and dark tone to Godshot. It's not quite clear when the story takes place and all of the characters and events are pushed to the extreme. For much of the novel, I liked the idea more than I enjoyed the story. But the end was very strong and I found myself much more emotionally engaged in the last few chapters as I rooted for Lacey May. Thank you to Netgalley, Edelweiss and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
This is not the first time recently that I came around to liking a book by the time I finished it. Godshot takes place in Peaches, California. There is a terrible drought in Peaches, and many of its residents are in the grip of a cult led by Vern, who promises that the drought will end if the members of the cult do his bidding. His idea of what the members should do is pretty outlandish and brutal. Lacey May is 14 years old, and it seems that nothing good has ever happened to her. Her mother is an alcoholic who has had a series of bad boyfriends. The cult was meant to be Lacey May and her mother's salvation, but it doesn't do much to improve Lacey May's life. Lacey May starts off as a believer but her eyes gradually open to what is really happening in her community. There's a surreal and dark tone to Godshot. It's not quite clear when the story takes place and all of the characters and events are pushed to the extreme. For much of the novel, I liked the idea more than I enjoyed the story. But the end was very strong and I found myself much more emotionally engaged in the last few chapters as I rooted for Lacey May. Thank you to Netgalley, Edelweiss and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
Read
May 3, 2020I can't do this right now. It's not the right time for something this deep, moving, and full of pain. Yes, the writing is amazing. I could see this being a HUGE book because of how it grips you. But, the hell-in-a-handbasket ride is taking all of my focus right now and the last thing I need is for Debbie Downer to jump in my handbasket with me.
Maybe I will pick this back up when happy-happy-fun-times return. Or, you know, normal life.
Maybe I will pick this back up when happy-happy-fun-times return. Or, you know, normal life.
May 27, 2020
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
3.5 Stars
““You smell like hell rolled in going nowhere fast.”
To put it real bluntly, if it’s about a cult then I’m gonna read it. I actually didn’t request Godshot until I found out it was culty. The cover had me thinking it was going to be trash like Glitter - remember that????
Woof!
And if I would have read the blurb I probably would have avoided it because White Oleander was not my cup of tea and there’s zero chance this is the result of that book having a baby with Geek Love. (I haven’t read Cruddy yet, but I’m fixin’ to go request it from the library now that I am allowed to go in there and pick stuff up again.)
Anyway, somehow in passing I found out this was about a cult and then I read it the very next day. The story here centers around 14-year old Lacey May and her community of Peaches, California – a town who truly believes “In Vern We Trust” – even while living through a drought of biblical proportions. But this is more than just a story of a creepy preacher and a dying town. More importantly it’s a story about mother/daughter relationships. From Lacey May and her own excommunicated mother to Grandma Cherry who says things like . . . .
And . . . . .
“Don’t touch them animals in there. Them’s my specials.”
(There’s probably a chance I’ll grow up to be her which I realize is terrifying.)
There was so much more to this book than I had imagined when starting. And the drought????
I think I drank a gallon of water while reading this.
3.5 Stars
““You smell like hell rolled in going nowhere fast.”
To put it real bluntly, if it’s about a cult then I’m gonna read it. I actually didn’t request Godshot until I found out it was culty. The cover had me thinking it was going to be trash like Glitter - remember that????
Woof!
And if I would have read the blurb I probably would have avoided it because White Oleander was not my cup of tea and there’s zero chance this is the result of that book having a baby with Geek Love. (I haven’t read Cruddy yet, but I’m fixin’ to go request it from the library now that I am allowed to go in there and pick stuff up again.)
Anyway, somehow in passing I found out this was about a cult and then I read it the very next day. The story here centers around 14-year old Lacey May and her community of Peaches, California – a town who truly believes “In Vern We Trust” – even while living through a drought of biblical proportions. But this is more than just a story of a creepy preacher and a dying town. More importantly it’s a story about mother/daughter relationships. From Lacey May and her own excommunicated mother to Grandma Cherry who says things like . . . .
And . . . . .
“Don’t touch them animals in there. Them’s my specials.”
(There’s probably a chance I’ll grow up to be her which I realize is terrifying.)
There was so much more to this book than I had imagined when starting. And the drought????
I think I drank a gallon of water while reading this.
January 22, 2020
This is a perfect novel. From my blurb on the cover, which I mean with my full heart: "Chelsea Bieker's Godshot is an absolute masterpiece. A truly epic journey through girlhood, divinity, and the blood that binds and divides us, it is a feminist magnum opus of this, or any, time. Bieker is a pitch-perfect ventriloquist of extraordinary talent and ferocity. Imagine if Annie Proulx wrote something like White Oleander crossed with Geek Love or Cruddy, and then add cults, God, motherhood, girlhood, class, deserts, witches, the divinity of women . . . Terrifying, resplendent, and profoundly moving, this book will leave you changed." GET ON IT.
April 4, 2020
What a fantastic, enthralling, and utterly heartbreaking story. I started this before bed (mistake) and then immediately picked it back up when I woke and didn't put it down again until I finished it.
Chelsea Bieker's writing gave me goosebumps at times... "I had no bruises on my body to show my motherloss, and so to anyone else, did it exist?" I could feel the oppression of the heat and the despair of Lacey May through her words. The way she painted all the characters was just done so, so well.
This is the type of book that is absolutely going to stick with you for awhile. I know it will with me.
5 huge stars
Chelsea Bieker's writing gave me goosebumps at times... "I had no bruises on my body to show my motherloss, and so to anyone else, did it exist?" I could feel the oppression of the heat and the despair of Lacey May through her words. The way she painted all the characters was just done so, so well.
This is the type of book that is absolutely going to stick with you for awhile. I know it will with me.
5 huge stars
December 5, 2019
"Whatever's happened to you can either make you beautiful, or it will ruin you forever. You decide. … I mean, beautiful. I mean, deep and changed. Affected. Wise. When you see a woman like that, you know. She's beautiful because of her undoing. Beautiful because she rebirthed herself from ashes."
Chelsea Bieker’s Godshot is a dynamite of a debut novel about the true grit of girlhood under the long arm of religion and patriarchy. The story dawns in the drought-stricken town of Peaches, California, a place where the sun has made a rusted wasteland of what was once verdant and bountiful; it is no place to raise young girls.
This is the misfortune of 14-year-old Lacey May, who, along with her alcoholic mother, decamps to Peaches at the advent of Pastor Vern — a white man claiming to be Christ’s reincarnate — who turned infidels into believers after summoning rain from the sky. Hellbent on driving out the evils of the decaying city by way of unthinkable practices — from cola baptisms to god glitter sermons — Vern allots the young men and women of his cult different “assignments,” one that banishes her mother into exile, another leaves Lacey May with a child of incest. Cast into such motherlessness, our plucky heroine must discern the contradictions of the church on her own before another of Vern’s prophecies come to pass. Just when the light begins to pierce the darkness that has overtaken Peaches when she finds refuge among phone sex operators ("witches") and other outcasts, life tasks Lacey with one last assignment: to abandon the girl she was before to become the mother she needs to be.
While feminism motifs are at the front of this story, I deeply respected Bieker’s unflinching approach to using her heroine's journey to undermine the duplicitous complex of straight white men, all of whom are exposed as abusers of power (i.e., cult leaders, pedophiles, rapists, etc.), to inform an even larger concept on how much of a menace they really can be to a society. And who better than Bieker to evoke such a terrifying yet touching take on the coming-of-age cult narrative. The brooding darkness and feminist energy from which she draws to bring this nightmare to life made the story feel eerily dystopian, and I savored every page of it.
Bieker writes with a stroke of fever and ferocity I have yet to read in a debut in a long time, which is why Godshot will be one of the most flaming-hot forays you’ll read next year.
(Thanks, Catapult, for sending me Bieker's debut novel in exchange for an honest review. ✨)
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
Chelsea Bieker’s Godshot is a dynamite of a debut novel about the true grit of girlhood under the long arm of religion and patriarchy. The story dawns in the drought-stricken town of Peaches, California, a place where the sun has made a rusted wasteland of what was once verdant and bountiful; it is no place to raise young girls.
This is the misfortune of 14-year-old Lacey May, who, along with her alcoholic mother, decamps to Peaches at the advent of Pastor Vern — a white man claiming to be Christ’s reincarnate — who turned infidels into believers after summoning rain from the sky. Hellbent on driving out the evils of the decaying city by way of unthinkable practices — from cola baptisms to god glitter sermons — Vern allots the young men and women of his cult different “assignments,” one that banishes her mother into exile, another leaves Lacey May with a child of incest. Cast into such motherlessness, our plucky heroine must discern the contradictions of the church on her own before another of Vern’s prophecies come to pass. Just when the light begins to pierce the darkness that has overtaken Peaches when she finds refuge among phone sex operators ("witches") and other outcasts, life tasks Lacey with one last assignment: to abandon the girl she was before to become the mother she needs to be.
While feminism motifs are at the front of this story, I deeply respected Bieker’s unflinching approach to using her heroine's journey to undermine the duplicitous complex of straight white men, all of whom are exposed as abusers of power (i.e., cult leaders, pedophiles, rapists, etc.), to inform an even larger concept on how much of a menace they really can be to a society. And who better than Bieker to evoke such a terrifying yet touching take on the coming-of-age cult narrative. The brooding darkness and feminist energy from which she draws to bring this nightmare to life made the story feel eerily dystopian, and I savored every page of it.
Bieker writes with a stroke of fever and ferocity I have yet to read in a debut in a long time, which is why Godshot will be one of the most flaming-hot forays you’ll read next year.
(Thanks, Catapult, for sending me Bieker's debut novel in exchange for an honest review. ✨)
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
November 13, 2019
This book is well written, and I liked the flawed and well-rounded characters, but I'm to the point where I cringe when I see a book described as "feminist" simply because of how often that translates to "terrible things happen to women, and they might have a few victories and eventually get to show their strength, but mostly it's just a series of bad things happening to them over and over." I'm clearly in the minority here based on the other reviews, but it's like the Lifetime Movie paradox. Lifetime was "television for women," but you could almost guarantee that any time you turned it on, you'd be seeing something awful happening to a woman. I'm burnt out on reading books like that.
October 25, 2019
For fans of Janet Fitch’s White Oleander and Emma Cline’s The Girls, Godshot is a dazzling literary debut by Rona Jaffe Award winner Chelsea Bieker about one teenage girl’s feminist awakening and her search for her missing mother. Forthcoming April 7, 2020!
March 15, 2020
The premise hooked me: a California cult, with followers desperate for even the most misguided hope and leadership during a drought, a broken mother-daughter relationship, and elements of misogyny, battle for control of the self, and the strong female fighting spirit.
But each detail was more over the top than the last. Because of that I found this book difficult to read because so much of it felt implausible, yet the tone was not farcical or campy. Gold glitter rains down on the congregation during the low-tech church services (no one looks up to see the leader's daughter doing this until the main protagonist peers up, late in the book); the bible is rewritten with the cult leader Vern's name in place of Jesus', the congregation is forbidden from securing food or supplies from neighboring towns, so rather than water they only drink (and baptize in) soda. I don't doubt that people exhibit blind faith and are willing to go to extremes, and that this is especially possible during times of desperation, but the presentation of each element of Vern's rule and followers and community made them feel distracting and unlikely.
Not to mention the various sinister cartoonlike quirks of the dangerously faulted grandmother: Cherry collects and plays with taxidermied animals that she dresses up, *and* she has her granddaughter continually follow through with revolting hygiene tasks such as removing all the hair from her body, *and* she covers her bald head with jelly and soda.
The pacing felt uneven, and the strongest and most cohesive part of the story was toward the end, with a search and some resolution, strong female characters, and a cobbled-together family of sorts that seems destined to succeed.
Catapult and NetGalley provided me with an advance publication copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
But each detail was more over the top than the last. Because of that I found this book difficult to read because so much of it felt implausible, yet the tone was not farcical or campy. Gold glitter rains down on the congregation during the low-tech church services (no one looks up to see the leader's daughter doing this until the main protagonist peers up, late in the book); the bible is rewritten with the cult leader Vern's name in place of Jesus', the congregation is forbidden from securing food or supplies from neighboring towns, so rather than water they only drink (and baptize in) soda. I don't doubt that people exhibit blind faith and are willing to go to extremes, and that this is especially possible during times of desperation, but the presentation of each element of Vern's rule and followers and community made them feel distracting and unlikely.
Not to mention the various sinister cartoonlike quirks of the dangerously faulted grandmother: Cherry collects and plays with taxidermied animals that she dresses up, *and* she has her granddaughter continually follow through with revolting hygiene tasks such as removing all the hair from her body, *and* she covers her bald head with jelly and soda.
The pacing felt uneven, and the strongest and most cohesive part of the story was toward the end, with a search and some resolution, strong female characters, and a cobbled-together family of sorts that seems destined to succeed.
Catapult and NetGalley provided me with an advance publication copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
April 29, 2020
4.5 STARS
"Life was pain and this was mine. Was it more or less than anyone else's?" - Godshot.
SYNOPSIS: Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it’s an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to a cult leader named Pastor Vern for guidance. He promises, through secret “assignments,” to bring the rain everybody is praying for.
Lacey has no reason to doubt the pastor. But then her life explodes in a single unimaginable act of abandonment: her mother, exiled from the community for her sins, leaves Lacey and runs off with a man she barely knows. Abandoned and distraught, Lacey May moves in with her widowed grandma, Cherry, who is more concerned with her taxidermy mice collection than her own granddaughter. As Lacey May endures the increasingly appalling acts of men who want to write all the rules, and begins to uncover the full extent of Pastor Vern’s shocking plan to bring fertility back to the land, she decides she must go on a quest to find her mother, no matter what it takes. With her only guidance coming from the romance novels she reads and the unlikely companionship of the women who knew her mother, she must find her own way through unthinkable circumstances. - Godshot.
REVIEW: Thank you so much to NetGalley, Catapult, and Chelsea Bieker for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am so happy I received this book because once I read the synopsis I knew it would be a story that I would love. This is a book about Lacey May and her journey in life. Having a rough childhood, Lacey and her mother are saved and join into a cult led by pastor Vern. The book follows Lacey and her mother's life in the cult which is settled in a town plagued by drought and the absence of rain. The story is heartbreaking and page-turning. I don't think there was one moment of it that I didn't love or wasn't interested in. The story, although fictional, seemed so real and almost like something that has really happened. I could feel for all the characters, their troubles, and heartbreaks.
The characters of this book were amazing and not like any I have read before. From the beginning, I fell in love with Lacey May and was very invested in her story. In the book, she battles a lot between her head and her heart and also her religion versus her freedom. This makes for some very interesting thoughts and considerations in my opinion. The other characters in the book were also very memorable in their own ways. Most of them were seemingly "normal" people who were fanatics about their religion but also had some sort of quirk about them. I thought that each character was well thought out, and played significant roles in the story, even helping to set the tone and the overall setting of the town of Peaches.
This book felt so deep to me and raised a lot of feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Also, as I mentioned it seemed so real in a way, something not entirely fiction. After finishing the book, I went to the author's social media page and found a piece she wrote about the book and the connecting themes between the novel and her personal life. I will post the link here because I think it adds to the story, but I would suggest reading it only AFTER you have read the book. You can find her piece here: https://lithub.com/motherloss-that-th....
Overall, I am so glad that I picked up this book and know that I will read it again in the future. In fact, I plan to also purchase a physical copy so I can have it in my collection. I would recommend this book to others. I would recommend this to anyone who likes emotional, character-driven stories. Or honestly, anyone who is interested in cults, religious sects, and the power and loss of relationships. I am already looking forward to reading whatever Chelsea Bieker puts out next.
"I don't mean beautiful like you're thinking. I mean beautiful. I mean, deep and changed. Affected. Wise. When you see a woman like that, you know. She's beautiful because of her undoing. Beautiful because she rebirthed herself from ashes."- Godshot.
"Life was pain and this was mine. Was it more or less than anyone else's?" - Godshot.
SYNOPSIS: Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it’s an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to a cult leader named Pastor Vern for guidance. He promises, through secret “assignments,” to bring the rain everybody is praying for.
Lacey has no reason to doubt the pastor. But then her life explodes in a single unimaginable act of abandonment: her mother, exiled from the community for her sins, leaves Lacey and runs off with a man she barely knows. Abandoned and distraught, Lacey May moves in with her widowed grandma, Cherry, who is more concerned with her taxidermy mice collection than her own granddaughter. As Lacey May endures the increasingly appalling acts of men who want to write all the rules, and begins to uncover the full extent of Pastor Vern’s shocking plan to bring fertility back to the land, she decides she must go on a quest to find her mother, no matter what it takes. With her only guidance coming from the romance novels she reads and the unlikely companionship of the women who knew her mother, she must find her own way through unthinkable circumstances. - Godshot.
REVIEW: Thank you so much to NetGalley, Catapult, and Chelsea Bieker for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am so happy I received this book because once I read the synopsis I knew it would be a story that I would love. This is a book about Lacey May and her journey in life. Having a rough childhood, Lacey and her mother are saved and join into a cult led by pastor Vern. The book follows Lacey and her mother's life in the cult which is settled in a town plagued by drought and the absence of rain. The story is heartbreaking and page-turning. I don't think there was one moment of it that I didn't love or wasn't interested in. The story, although fictional, seemed so real and almost like something that has really happened. I could feel for all the characters, their troubles, and heartbreaks.
The characters of this book were amazing and not like any I have read before. From the beginning, I fell in love with Lacey May and was very invested in her story. In the book, she battles a lot between her head and her heart and also her religion versus her freedom. This makes for some very interesting thoughts and considerations in my opinion. The other characters in the book were also very memorable in their own ways. Most of them were seemingly "normal" people who were fanatics about their religion but also had some sort of quirk about them. I thought that each character was well thought out, and played significant roles in the story, even helping to set the tone and the overall setting of the town of Peaches.
This book felt so deep to me and raised a lot of feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Also, as I mentioned it seemed so real in a way, something not entirely fiction. After finishing the book, I went to the author's social media page and found a piece she wrote about the book and the connecting themes between the novel and her personal life. I will post the link here because I think it adds to the story, but I would suggest reading it only AFTER you have read the book. You can find her piece here: https://lithub.com/motherloss-that-th....
Overall, I am so glad that I picked up this book and know that I will read it again in the future. In fact, I plan to also purchase a physical copy so I can have it in my collection. I would recommend this book to others. I would recommend this to anyone who likes emotional, character-driven stories. Or honestly, anyone who is interested in cults, religious sects, and the power and loss of relationships. I am already looking forward to reading whatever Chelsea Bieker puts out next.
"I don't mean beautiful like you're thinking. I mean beautiful. I mean, deep and changed. Affected. Wise. When you see a woman like that, you know. She's beautiful because of her undoing. Beautiful because she rebirthed herself from ashes."- Godshot.
April 22, 2020
Lacey May and her mother live in Peaches, California which was once a prosperous town known as the “raisin capital of the world”. The future is now very uncertain after a prolonged drought and those who remain rely upon the guidance of Pastor Vern. The townspeople believe that the rain will return if they obey his rules and complete his assignments.
Lacey’s alcoholic mother is thrown out of town for not obeying Pastor Vern’s rules. Lacey is left to live with her grandmother and the location of her mother is kept a secret. She becomes obsessed with finding her mother and is soon selected for a horrible assignment. Lacey has serious choices to make and begins to question Pastor Vern and her membership in the community.
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker is a debut novel. This book hits Suzy’s sweet spot with a combination of a dark environment, gritty characters, and all the emotions of family bonds. I look forward to more books from this author in the future.
Lacey’s alcoholic mother is thrown out of town for not obeying Pastor Vern’s rules. Lacey is left to live with her grandmother and the location of her mother is kept a secret. She becomes obsessed with finding her mother and is soon selected for a horrible assignment. Lacey has serious choices to make and begins to question Pastor Vern and her membership in the community.
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker is a debut novel. This book hits Suzy’s sweet spot with a combination of a dark environment, gritty characters, and all the emotions of family bonds. I look forward to more books from this author in the future.
March 30, 2020
I am so thankful to Netgalley for this early book. Well written and couldn’t stop to put it down. Reminded me a little of the Book of Essie, but better. The details were perfect and I felt like I was there with each character through their ups and downs. I would recommend to people that like the Handmaids Tale as well. What an ending and to finish in a day with three kids is rare for this mamma. Thank you again for such an amazingly spiral of a book!
February 3, 2025
Lacey is a teenage girl living with her mother in Peaches, California under the cult leadership of Pastor Vern. Peaches is currently experiencing a major drought, and many community members believe obedience of Pastor Vern’s assignments for them will bring the much needed rain.
When her mother abruptly leaves Peaches, Lacey is left with a void and tries to uncover the why behind her departure. I felt for Lacey, being young and naive without strong, legitimate guidance, while also cringing at some of her choices.
There are a lot of dark topics in this story including cult life, assault, abuse, abandonment, and negligence, among others. I enjoyed Madwoman by Bieker more than Godshot but I’m here for her writing regardless — 3.5 stars
When her mother abruptly leaves Peaches, Lacey is left with a void and tries to uncover the why behind her departure. I felt for Lacey, being young and naive without strong, legitimate guidance, while also cringing at some of her choices.
There are a lot of dark topics in this story including cult life, assault, abuse, abandonment, and negligence, among others. I enjoyed Madwoman by Bieker more than Godshot but I’m here for her writing regardless — 3.5 stars
May 2, 2020
I struggled to finish this book because I didn't like it from the start. But the high rating on Goodreads and my difficulty in finding good e-books right now made me decide to push through. I can usually stomach some pretty tough subject material and I was actually interested in the cult storyline. But the writing and the characters were so distasteful i couldn't stand it. The only redeeming part of this book was the last few chapters, when the misery could finally end. Thanks to the author for writing the book, but this is not one I will recommend.
August 14, 2021
This title and cover are absolute fire, but between this, and The Project by Courtney Summers, I can unabashedly say that cult stories should be reserved for nonfiction. The fictional accounts lack authenticity. Rarely is there enough about the leader or how vulnerability is exploited. I need more emotion, not just stage direction-like storytelling. The real life versions are always more fucked up, but sadly, more entertaining.
March 13, 2020
What I was reading repulsed me but I could not put down Chelsea Bieker's debut novel Godshot. Lacey's narrative voice drew me in, her conflicted nativity and faith struggling to survive as her family and community fails to protect her. The novel reaches into the deepest questions of life and illustrates the limitations of love and faith.
The tragic series of events and abuse endured will be hard for some to follow; this is a dark story. But just when it seems that Lacey has lost everything, including control over her own life, she finds salvation.
Drought has hit the town of Peaches, the orchards turned to dust. Pastor Vern finds the community ripe for hope and promises to deliver rain if they believe in him. Isolating the community from the world, believers allow him total control.
Pastor Vern brings good to some. Lacey's mother found strength to overcome her alcoholism. Pastor Vern also destroys as he wields his total power. His plan to create a perfected church involves assignments, special purposes that believers long to be given. They want to be Godshot. Lacey's mother's assignment takes her on a downward spiral until she abandons Lacey to run off with a man, filled with false promises.
Lacey is taken in by her grandmother, one of Pastor Vern's unthinking believers. Lacey desperately misses her mother and endeavors to track her down, her search to learn taking her into the world beyond the Godshot.
Lacey's assignment begins her journey of doubt. Would God require such things?
The novel touches on so many hot-button issues relating to the social status and role of women, the persistence of human hope placed in unreliable leaders, the love of a child for her mother, and the awakening of a young woman to see beyond her community’s teachings.
Lacey's journey from darkness into light, from powerlessness to self-determination comes to a satisfying conclusion.
I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
The tragic series of events and abuse endured will be hard for some to follow; this is a dark story. But just when it seems that Lacey has lost everything, including control over her own life, she finds salvation.
Drought has hit the town of Peaches, the orchards turned to dust. Pastor Vern finds the community ripe for hope and promises to deliver rain if they believe in him. Isolating the community from the world, believers allow him total control.
Pastor Vern brings good to some. Lacey's mother found strength to overcome her alcoholism. Pastor Vern also destroys as he wields his total power. His plan to create a perfected church involves assignments, special purposes that believers long to be given. They want to be Godshot. Lacey's mother's assignment takes her on a downward spiral until she abandons Lacey to run off with a man, filled with false promises.
Lacey is taken in by her grandmother, one of Pastor Vern's unthinking believers. Lacey desperately misses her mother and endeavors to track her down, her search to learn taking her into the world beyond the Godshot.
Lacey's assignment begins her journey of doubt. Would God require such things?
The novel touches on so many hot-button issues relating to the social status and role of women, the persistence of human hope placed in unreliable leaders, the love of a child for her mother, and the awakening of a young woman to see beyond her community’s teachings.
Lacey's journey from darkness into light, from powerlessness to self-determination comes to a satisfying conclusion.
I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
December 12, 2025
Godshot is a deeply disturbing and devastating story about a teenage girl coming of age in a doomsday cult with a mother who has substance abuse issues and mental health struggles. When Lacey May’s mother is exiled from the church and commits to a lifetime of chasing a man who says he can make her famous and Lacey stays behind and endures a series of horrible events. Then Lacey decides to seek out the truth for herself despite her conditioning.
While the writing was very beautiful for the most part, I felt like Godshot was a hopeless book to read. I think Chelsea Bieker intended for this to be a feminist book about sisterhood, girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, and patriarchy, but this is the second book I’ve read this month where the violences against women don’t yield nearly enough bloodshed for me LOL. Like, I needed Pastor Vern to get his teeth and tongue pulled out on the church altar, sorry. I needed the Boys Club to be stoned with Bibles, sorry.
I feel split, in a way, because this is not a book I feel like I would recommend to a friend—it’s very heavy and even the moments that are meant to make the reader feel hopeful, I was frustrated by. With that said, stories like these are so important because there are people who were raised this way or live this way currently, and the ugliness is shown in a very raw and heartbreaking way. It just made for a heartbreaking read! However, I am very into cult media and the psyche behind it because I grew up in a fundamentalist, evangelical church that had huge culty vibes, so if you’re like me, I won’t say you’ll love this, but you for damn sure might empathize.
3.75 ⭐️s
While the writing was very beautiful for the most part, I felt like Godshot was a hopeless book to read. I think Chelsea Bieker intended for this to be a feminist book about sisterhood, girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, and patriarchy, but this is the second book I’ve read this month where the violences against women don’t yield nearly enough bloodshed for me LOL. Like, I needed Pastor Vern to get his teeth and tongue pulled out on the church altar, sorry. I needed the Boys Club to be stoned with Bibles, sorry.
I feel split, in a way, because this is not a book I feel like I would recommend to a friend—it’s very heavy and even the moments that are meant to make the reader feel hopeful, I was frustrated by. With that said, stories like these are so important because there are people who were raised this way or live this way currently, and the ugliness is shown in a very raw and heartbreaking way. It just made for a heartbreaking read! However, I am very into cult media and the psyche behind it because I grew up in a fundamentalist, evangelical church that had huge culty vibes, so if you’re like me, I won’t say you’ll love this, but you for damn sure might empathize.
3.75 ⭐️s
unfinished
March 31, 2020Like a cross between The Handmaid’s Tale and Gold Fame Citrus, this is a wholly believable speculative novel about repressive religion and transactional sex. However, a combination of the gritty subject matter and a CV-related lack of focus and loss of Kindle reading time led me to put it down. (I read the first 30% and skimmed to 52%.) I don’t honestly care what happens in the rest.
A quick summary: Peaches, California, once the raisin capital of the USA, is suffering a severe water shortage. Pastor Vern, who believes himself to be a new incarnation of God (like a brother of Jesus), gained many followers at Gifts of the Spirit Church for bringing the rains back temporarily seven years ago. Lacey May Herd, 14, has just had her first period, which according to Vern means she’s ready for her divine mission. But with her alcoholic mother gone AWOL, Lacey is unsure if her newfound sexuality makes her powerful or puts her in danger.
A quick summary: Peaches, California, once the raisin capital of the USA, is suffering a severe water shortage. Pastor Vern, who believes himself to be a new incarnation of God (like a brother of Jesus), gained many followers at Gifts of the Spirit Church for bringing the rains back temporarily seven years ago. Lacey May Herd, 14, has just had her first period, which according to Vern means she’s ready for her divine mission. But with her alcoholic mother gone AWOL, Lacey is unsure if her newfound sexuality makes her powerful or puts her in danger.
January 31, 2020
I'm not even sure what to say about this heart-wrenching debut! It's taken me days to collect my thoughts. When Lacey May's alcoholic mother leaves her for a stranger who promises to make her a star, fourteen-year-old Lacey goes to live with her eccentric grandmother Cherry who is obsessed with dressing her collection of rodents. Peaches, California is experiencing a drought, but fortunately Pastor Vern has guaranteed his congregation that he can produce rain as long as they follow his orders. As the readers, we recognize the hallmarks of this cult as it becomes horrifyingly clear that Vern has his own agenda and his people are blind to the plan. And this is only the beginning! So much more takes place as Bieker addresses multiple themes of empowerment, feminism, loss, motherhood, redemption, and forgiveness (just to name a few). The writing is poignant and there is both joy and pathos in the storyline. It may be unlike anything you've ever read before, but it will certainly keep you thinking deeply about concepts and people you care about!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!
April 29, 2020
3.5 Stars
December 8, 2019
Holy hell, this book! GODSHOT is a dazzling, darkly funny debut from a writer whose charm, wit, and blistering intelligence will scorch your heart. With unsentimental compassion and unprecedented style, Chelsea Bieker steeps this brutal, harrowing story in hope. The prose shimmers and swerves--so full of gritty truths and resplendent beauty I drenched every page in highlighter.
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