Everything else about this book scored huge brownie points with me. Even though there is one aspect of The Virgin Cure that did bug me, that was more a matter of stylistic choice. Despite reading and feeling pulled towards a lot of literary fiction books, I usually find something to complain about in each book - mostly about the characters or their actions. I can guess that this one is definitely going to have a place in my top 5 for this year. McKay's second book, The Virgin Cure is purely magnificent. Unfortunately I still haven't read it, but I can finally say that I understand what everyone is talking about. It is in this place that Moth learns her way around and finds out the tremendous price to pay for her independence.įrom the time I started reading book reviews, one book had always stood out as a solid favorite among many readers - Ami McKay's The Birth House. On the plus side, Moth gets food, security and a place to sleep - things that she didn't have easy access to previously. And then begins a new life for Moth - at the infant school, where virgin girls are taught how to charm and seduce a man until eventually their virginity is sold. Despite her attempts to blend into the new household, she ends up detesting the lady of the house - so much that she was willing to risk thieving to escape.

Named Moth by her father because a tree told him to do so, Moth was sold into servitude by her mother in exchange for a fortune.

Twelve-year old Moth was born into the poorest of the slums in 1870s New York, to a fortune-telling mother and a father who abandoned them when she was three. She'd be left with nothing - no clothes to wear, no place to sleep, no food in her belly. The wage they had agreed upon was meant to keep Mama alive.

The virgin cure book