How do you even describe or deign to review a book like The Female of the Species? It's an intense, riveting book of rawness. The main character, Alex Craft, describes herself at one point in the story as transitioning from a scab to an open wound. That's exactly what The Female of the Species feels like — it's a gaping wound, bleeding pain in its wake. McGinnis writes her characters with so much truthfulness, it hurts. I could not put this book down — it is simply filled with too much anguish, too powerful to ignore and yet so absolutely necessary.