We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky

by Emma Hooper

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION*

An epic, boundary-pushing tale of five young women rebelling against an era that relies on their submission, from the acclaimed author of Etta and Otto and Russell and James .

During the golden age of the Roman Empire, five girls enjoy a modest childhood in their small Portuguese village. They race each other through lemon orchards and pick fresh fruit for the commander who overlooks his people from a large house on the hill. Though the girls are all raised by different families, there is one thing they know without a they are sisters.

What they don’t know is that their simple existence is about to be irrevocably changed. When soldiers abduct them from their village and bring them to the commander, the sisters are suddenly forced to confront long-buried secrets that reveal their lives to be anything but ordinary. Burgeoning on womanhood just as the Empire begins to show signs of crumbling around them, they soon find themselves at the centre of a deadly standoff and must part ways to fight their own battles in order to survive.

One of Emma Hooper’s most compelling novels yet, We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky is bursting at the seams with abstract miracles, devastating tenderness, hope, desire, and treachery—with life and death in all their glory. Demonstrating both the force and fragility of human nature, Hooper urges us to consider how we’ll each face our own final hour, to examine what the end really is it something to fear, or is it a daring leap into the blaze of a new beginning?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Literary Fiction, Portugal, Book Club, Adult

352 pages, Paperback

Published August 8, 2023

About the author

Books about Places and People. Songs about Dinosaurs and Insects. Research about Pop Music and Robots. Emma lives, writes, plays and teaches in Bath, England, but goes home to Canada to cross-country ski as often as she can.

Reviews

[Kelsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s a big no from me, this book was incredibly repetitive in a couple different ways: the style of writing itself as well as the multiple POV’s from 5 sisters that cover basically the same storyline and events. I tried to power through but ended up DNF’ing at 241 pages and basically scanned most of the last couple chapters of that before finally throwing in the towel as I could not bring myself to read another passage that went something like this:

“When I was sick and getting hotter and hotter and hotter, Basil, the sister who lived with me, ran to the stream and back, to the stream and back, bringing me cup after cup after cup of murky water. Still, I got hotter and hotter and hotter, night after night after night, until my skin, my face, bubbled and boiled and broke and I almost died, almost, almost, but then didn't. Just because. Because of the dream I had of the sun saying, Sh. Of the fish, cool and silver and coiled. Because sometimes you die and sometimes you don't.”

I do not regret not finding out what happened at the end (probably nothing, just like the rest of the book.) There was tons of potential here with the unique time period and setting; a small village in Portugal during the golden age of the Roman Empire but wouldn’t recommend unless you are looking for the slowest of slow burns historical fiction plot coupled with an unusual (and irritating) style of writing.

Definitely not for me! But maybe you would like it.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

I’m interested in the author, and this was the first of her novels I’d tried. I wasn’t all that interested in the premise or setting of the novel, however, and after quite a few pages I realized that was holding true. So I am bailing. Looking forward to trying her other books, which sound far more up my street.

[Colleen Hubbard · Rating 5 out of 5]

New Emma Hooper book: yes. Reimagining of a little known Roman-era saint: yes. Portugal, feminism, history: yes to everything.

This book is fantastic -- thoughtful, wise and funny like every Emma Hooper book before it, and with a twist of Catholicism and history that I really enjoyed.

[Roxanne Meek · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book filled with yellow & lemons, the sky & tenderness, sisters & babies, rivers & the sea. So much love for this story, these sisters & Emma Hooper.

Definitely one of my favourite book covers 💛 🍋

[Nadine · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I was one to quit reading a book in the middle I for sure would have quit this one. Instead, I finished it and was super disappointed by the ending. Not a fan.

[joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot: 5 sisters growing up in 2nd century Portugal forced to confront their own values and desires against the backdrop of early Christianity, patriarchy, and poverty.

The twist: It’s also a fantasy novel.

The challenge: You’ll either love it or hate it.

Hooper’s writing style is unusual; imagery soaked in lemon trees and sunshine, and oddly clipped dialogue. This is entirely by choice as Hooper weaves a vivid world for the sisters as they come of age among the oceans and dry earth that surrounds them. Personally, I liked the idea of the book more than I enjoyed reading it. Though initially absorbed in the culture and sisters, I was trudging through the last half hoping for a brilliant ending that would make it worthwhile. Overall, this read is for fans of fantasy, slow burns, and quirky narration.

Read with me: Instagram | Website

[Margi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fascinating and gorgeous book by Emma Hooper. A new perspective on an era we all think we know about, the Roman Empire.
If you haven’t read her first two novels, do that too. She’s a treasure.

[Alexandra Stoia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved it.

[daisy]

i stared at a wall for a good while after finishing it was GOOD and SAD

[Miles K Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

:(

[Natasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hooper vividly pulls the reader into the heat and lemon-scented air of 2nd century Portugal with taste, smell, and feel, but her choices in dialogue and narration did not engage me as much as these sensory details. She chooses simple and almost modern language, uses short, sometimes truncated sentences, and employs repetition. Though I appreciated the unique structure of these choices, it gave the prose a stumbling, stuttering effect, rather than the fluidity I had hoped for. Much of the characterization was lost for me in repetitive dialogue that failed to capture each character's voice and personality. I understand how Hooper's writing could captivate a reader and sweep them back millennia, but it was not effective for me.

[Karrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the story interesting and the timeframe unique for historical fiction, I just didn’t find the characters that compelling.

The women as breeding stock was driven home over and over. We’ve romanticized motherhood today but the lack of affection seemed excessive.

I also found the writing style more gimmicky than evocative.

[Sandra Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Emma Hooper's book, We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky. I had read previews of this book and knew I would like it. The hardships of the times, the sun, the heat and the lemons all gave the story such a vibe of other worldliness. Nine sisters all connected --all remembered by the survivors--my #1 book for the last few years.

[Lia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written! Although I've always enjoyed historical fiction I pretty much only read books set in the 20th century. This book is making me reevaluate that! The changing perspectives and time differences as well as the slight aura of magic and mystery made it a captivating read.

[Christy Masch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can understand how this book may not be for everyone. It took me a few chapters to get into the rhythm of the writing style. But I thought it was absolutely beautiful.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

This took me forever to read and I'm torn about it. The beginning was very captivating and I still love Emma Hoopers writing style, but I didn't find the narrative particularly engaging. This was like an extreme version of show, don't tell, to the point that I felt like I didn't have enough context to really understand anything that was happening. I wanted to like it so much and it picked up again near the end, but I'm not sure telling the same events from multiple perspectives was useful in this book. It just felt repetitive.

[Patsey]

Loved it! Written in a very different structure/style. Emma Hooper is very creative. All 3 of her books I’ve read have been great. This may not be to everyone’s taste but it stretched me in a good way.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still unsure about this book. I would need to talk it out with someone:)

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great

[Caro D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unique style of writing that took a minute to get into but once I did, the story was enjoyable. Based on the legend/story of nontuplet sisters turned saints from second century Portugal.

[Virginie St-Pierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un univers puissant, une prose rythmique, une traduction fluide, j'ai adoré !

[Éva Marois · Rating 3 out of 5]

L’autrice avait une belle plume, c’était poétique mais tellement pas ce à quoi je m’imaginais. Ça se veut un roman féministe, mais les protagonistes font peu d’actions en ce sens.

[John Everard Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into the flow of this book. Another time and another place. Language is important to me and Emma Hooper's use of language is amazing. She tells the story and she sets the tone. The repetition and the choice of words stopped me often to listen to and feel the meaning of what was happening. " She doesn't respond, doesn't see me, because I can't be two of me at once, can't be the baby me and the me me, and I'm surrounded by dark and dark and dark and noting, because I'm nothing. Sh. she says, not opening her eyes, rocking herself with the baby, both together, lulled. But, I say, Sh, she says Sh, Sh, Sh, now, now, now. I listened. And I listened. And then, past my mother , past myself, past nothing, at the farthest reach of nothing, there was something, something else."
The flow of the story, back and forth in time took me by surprise at times. But it contributed to the movement of the story. The conflation of possibilities and realities in the present moment. The collision of worldviews. This was a very rich read.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story of sisters who were identical yet unique, growing up in 2nd century Portugal. Throughout their lives, they experience extreme poverty & wealth, Christianity & Roman customs, marriage & celibacy, patriarchy & independence. Each sister has her own story, but they always come back to each other. Sometimes the repetitive, simplistic dialogue between the characters was tiresome, but it helped create an unusual writing style that I appreciated. The imagery filled my head with sun-drenched, lemon-scented skies, and the contrast between dry earth and rivers/oceans made you feel how connected these women were to the natural world.

[Bob Mcinnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Hooper is in a category with Twain Lee, Diamant as a great storyteller, plot developer, and character creator. Her Etta and Otto are my Etta and Otto and one of ten books in my desert island bundle. We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky is a retrospective simultaneous telling of a coming of age story, when that meant 13 years old. Hearing the voices of seven sisters and the circle around them reminds me of the adage that "I don't know if this happened, but it is true."

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I'm a huge fan of Emma Hooper and she has never disappointed. I love the way she draws her characters - they're so soulful, but they're also so human. They're funny, flawed and trying so hard to do the right thing.

In this book, I was introduced to Saint Quiteria and her six siblings, two of whom are stillborn and two more lost early in life to the plague or smallpox. This is a real saint - a woman canonized for freeing early Christians held captive by non-believers, who apparently performed miracles and died a virgin martyr. In interviews, Hooper says she wanted to ground Quiteria's so-called miracles in actions that were actually likely to have happened, but took on the magical and mystical in retelling.

It's interesting to read about early Christianity, about the lure of an afterlife that promised upward mobility, that did not require you to subscribe to hierarchy, or to believe in a life of servitude that would never change unless somehow you were magically born into a better life. This new religion promised salvation and an easier life for everyone, no matter who you were or what you'd done. You can see why it was threatening to non-believers. I really appreciated how Hooper framed the sisters on a spectrum of belief, from the fully reborn to the deeply skeptical, to Quiteria herself, who seemed to enjoy the use of her combat skills and think less about the salvation of her soul.

The writing here is beautiful. She does so well distinguishing the sisters, portraying their links, showing both the ways in which they are a wonder and the ways in which they are just human.

I loved the small section on the notion of Barbarians, the way anything different was "barbaric" and the way the language smoothed away the longer it went unused, the way it sprang back in the memory.

Keep writing, Emma. Can't wait to read the next one!

[Eva Malkki · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange book. Something of a disappointment to me. The style and voice are clearly Emma Hooper's, familiar from her previous books, and they do draw you in with their beauty and rhythm. But the story is disjointed with the continuous changes in point of view, and, I felt, hollow with all that is left unsaid. Thinking back, there seemed to be an awful lot of "telling, not showing", but I'm not sure what the telling was all about.

The biggest problem was that it never became evident to me why the author felt that this story needed to be told. What was so compelling about the sisters' story? Was it about their sainthood, their Christianity, their doomed love? Feminism? The historical period? None of these was really emphasised enough to become a proper theme. Having found out from the blurb that Saint Quiteria and her sisters were real historical figures, I read up on them a little, but hardly any of the supposed historical aspects of their lives came up in the story. If you just read the book, you wouldn't know they had been "real" saints - I might have just shrugged and thought OK, there were these nine sisters in Roman times and they led hard lives. So?

Also [spoiler alert], one of the major aspects of St Quiteria mentioned online at least is her beheading. I would have thought that would become a major climax towards which the book would build and build. But as it was, it was unclear to me whether it even happened or not. Or did they just jump?

Oh and P.S.: I was rather annoyed to find the spelling mistake "X walked passed Y" not once but twice in the book.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed and appreciated this Roman-empire-set story of nine sisters (nontuplets!) that had an interesting structure going from sister to sister, showing their lives over about twenty years. We often see the same events from different sisters’ perspectives (and for me that sometimes felt repetitive/superfluous), and we also get snippets of life in ~180 AD Portugal: the Roman Empire reach, the slaves and the powerful, the advent and spread of Christianity, the hold of the Roman gods and goddesses, the violence of the day to day, the fighting of “barbarians”… it’s a time period I haven’t read a lot of fiction about, and I loved the ancient history pieces.

Not all nine sisters live past their births, and the births cause their mother (in the opening paragraphs so not a spoiler) to ask a slave to drown them. The slave instead disperses them among the nearby peasants, and the girls grow up in different families but with the knowledge they are sisters because they’re identical. Five survive childhood, and we then follow the remaining as they find their way back to their father and his new wife, whether they want to or not. There’s love and art and war and religion, and the writing (and spacing in the page) often comes across as more poetry than prose (I liked the audio but it was good to read parts on the page because of the breaks in the pages and paragraphs).

[Mary H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, at time of writing, has a lower rating than the book I previously reviewed which I gave one star - goes to show that a Goodreads Raring Score is NOT a good predictor of book quality.

I borrowed this from the library only because I so enjoyed the last book by Emma Hooper that I read. I must say, when i realised that it was set in Roman times, my confidence wavered. But within three pages I was hooked.

Spellbinding. Beautiful, beautiful writing. Definitely one of my books of the year.

One reason I was less than excited about the Roman empire element is that I grew up in a city famed for its Roman baths and history (as well as its Georgian beauty), and trailing round the Roman Baths year in, year out as a school child is not something that makes anyone thrilled about the history of that time! However clearly it is inspiring for a resident who arrives as an adult and makes that same city her home - as Emma Hooper has done. Meanwhile I now live in Canada, where Hooper grew up, and much prefer this country to England of Brexit and Division. A happy swap. (Although I will not be setting anyone's world alight with any writing of mine, I'll leave that to Emma Hooper).

[Donna Houston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huh?
I typically prefer going in blind, without reading the back of a book... but I just finished this, and feel like now I need to read the summary and some reviews to figure out what the hell I just read.

I started off a bit cynical - I mean, really? how did 7 of 9 babies (not twins, not triplets but nonuplets!) survive being born approx 2000 years ago?

Then after hundreds of pages of life from the different girls' points of view, around the timing of the spread and persecution of Christianity ("God of Everything"), with a bit of Vestal Virgins, the pox, weaving, Roman soldiers, and 'flying' (?!) to have it all culminate in a "Thelma and Louise" ending?
It kept me reading but I had such high hopes that any the weirdness or confusion was leading up to a super cool ending, so I was less than thrilled.

The writing style took some getting used to, with no direct dialogue - literally not one quotation marks... and the repetitive tactic was starting to wear thin: It's good? Isn't this good? It's good...

So now I need to go research more about St. Quiteria (I know this little tidbit from the epigraph), and what other historical persons / events this is based on.