Exquisite. Although the subject matter does not get much darker, there was so much I loved about the way this darkness--and the women's response to it--unfolded over the course of this slim novel. The individual voices of the women, their strong personalities and at times volatile relationship to each other was made even more vivid by the fact that it was being recorded by an outsider (a man, someone raised in part by the outside world, a teacher in a room of the illiterate and uneducated, a single man in a room full of married women and children). The debate the women have is thought provoking in a way I did not expect, and the humanity and strength these women are given and the beautiful insight and intellect with which they approach their decision is what kept this novel from ever sliding into trauma porn. Absolutely gorgeous.