Exactly how steamy is this story?
PG-13
"Steamy" doesn't feel like quite the right word to describe the sex in this book—there's never any romance or tenderness, and instead just rape. Abyssinia is raped as a child and Lily Norene is raped by her husband as an adult, and this is the only sex within these pages. It never gets particularly graphic, though the descriptions can still be quite devastating:
Soon she heard thunder, but there was no storm. She saw a pansy wither, but there was only hay surrounding her. She heard the raw cry of birds and felt the sky rain down mud.
Suddenly the sun went out and called lightning bugs forth. On their wings flew death, fluorescent and green. Death touched her body, changed his mind, and flew away. (9.29-30)
See what we mean? It's a pretty gutting passage, though it largely avoids the gory details.