The Celestial Wife

The Celestial Wife is a blend of a coming-of-age story and historical fiction that centres around a 15-year-old girl who was raised in a Mormon FLDS community in western Canada.

The story started off strong as readers get a look into the life of Daisy, a teenage girl who was raised in a religious polygamist group in Canada in the 1960's where girls as young as 12 were married with the sole goal of birthing as many children as possible and devoting their lives to the church. Descriptions of what life was like for the girls, women and children were well-described and heartbreaking, but the story loses steam as the story changes focus. 

The story becomes far-fetched as Daisy experiences a few notable 1960's events and the focus shifts to small-town Okanagan Valley life and winemaking instead of the emotionally turbulent life of the women in the polygamist society that was controlled by a horrid human full of hubris and greed.

The strength of this book is how Howard creates a vivid 1960's atmosphere. But the way she incorporates many pop culture events (Beatles concert, Woodstock ...) felt heavy-handed, requiring readers to suspend disbelief and ultimately negatively impacted the storytelling. For a story set around emotionally wrought themes of sexual and religious trauma, violence and women's lack of agency in their own lives, these issues were handled with a very light hand, lacked depth which were exacerbated with the simplistic style of storytelling.  

Ultimately, I liked the concept of this coming-of-age story, but not its delivery. 

My Rating: 2.5 stars

Author: Leslie Howard

Genre: Historical Fiction, Canadian, Coming of Age

Type and Source: Trade Paperback, Public Library

Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada

First Published: April 9, 2024

Book Description from GoodReads: A young fundamentalist Mormon girl facing a forced marriage escapes her strict, polygamist community and comes of age in the tumultuous 1960s in this captivating novel inspired by shockingly true events.

Keep sweet no matter what, for this is the way to be lifted up
Keep sweet with every breath, for it is a matter of life or death

1964. Fifteen-year-old Daisy Shoemaker dreams of life beyond her small, isolated fundamentalist Mormon community of Redemption on the Canada—US border—despite Bishop Thorsen’s warning that the outside world is full of sin. According to the Principle, the only way to enter the celestial kingdom is through plural marriage. While the boys are taught to work in the lucrative sawmill that supports their enclave, Daisy and her best friend, Brighten, are instructed to keep sweet and wait for Placement—the day the bishop will choose a husband for them. But Daisy wants to be more than a sister-wife and a mother. So when she is placed with a man forty years her senior, she makes the daring decision to flee Redemption.

Years later, Daisy has a job and a group of trustworthy friends. Emboldened by the ideas of the feminist and counterculture movements, she is freer than she has ever been…until Brighten reaches out with a cry for help and Daisy’s past comes hurtling back. But to save the women she left behind, Daisy must risk her newfound independence and return to Redemption, where hellfire surely awaits.

For readers of Emma Cline’s The Girls and Ami McKay’s The Virgin Cure comes an arresting coming-of-age novel about a fearless young girl’s fight for freedom at a time of great historic change.