Counting Backwards

Yesterday, Jacqueline Friedland released her new novel, Counting Backwards. Divided between the 1910s/1920s and today, it uncovers a horrific story about eugenics, forced sterilizations, and women who have little power over their reproductive health and personal lives. It’s inspired by the true cases of Carrie Buck in 1924 and what’s continued to go on even today in immigration detention centers. These very real issues are brought to the forefront in this powerful and timely novel.

Why I Chose This Book:

When I read the description of Counting Backwards, I knew I had to read this grim but vital novel. I first heard about forced sterilizations in a movie a few years ago and was curious to learn more about this awful practice. I also was drawn to the story of Jessa’s fertility and longing for a child, as well as a spotlight on immigrants.

What I Liked:

• Eye-opening account of forced sterilizations and eugenics. This book puts focus on the horrors of our past… but also of ongoing atrocities committed against woman, especially women of color and women who are immigrants. This will fuel your righteous outrage.
• Discussions around fertility and family. I went through a year-long fertility journey myself, and much of what Jessa is going through here rang true for me.
• Women’s career ambitions versus family goals. Why are women so often pushed to choose between the two, or seen as less than when they try to have both?
• Dual timeline between 1910s and 1920s Virginia versus 2022 New York.
• Inspiration from real life. I didn’t realize until after I’d finished the book that Carrie Buck was a real woman. I appreciated getting to see her story brought to life.

Audiobook:

Amanda Stribling and Carolyn Jania are excellent narraters for Jessa and Carrie. Both bring their respective characters to life, Jessa with her anxieties and trying to do the right thing despite it all, and Carrie with her Virginia accent and optimistic outlook on her own life even in the face of such horrors. The audiobook is thoroughly engaging and adds extra feeling to the novel.

Final Thoughts

Counting Backwards is an excellent novel that shines a revealing light on the evils committed against women for the past century. It’s horrific to see eugenics in practice, harming tens of thousands of women. I loved following Carrie and Jessa’s stories, and despite how dark this goes, it offers some hope for change if more people stand up for each other. Jacqueline Friedland is an author I’m eager to read more from soon.

Special thanks to Jacqueline Friedland, Harper Muse, Harper Muse Audiobooks, Austenprose PR, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy Counting Backwards here – it’s available as a hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Counting Backwards by Jacqueline Friedland
Audiobook Narrator	Amanda Stribling and Carolyn Jania
Audience	Adult
Genre	Contemporary Fiction; Historical Fiction
Setting	New York; New Jersey; Virginia
Number of Pages	336
Format I Read	Audiobook & Ebook (NetGalley ARCs)
Original Publication Date	March 11, 2025
Publisher	Harper Muse

Official Summary

“Jacqueline Friedland’s ripped-from-the-headlines story is an Erin Brockovich for our times.” –Jill Santopolo, New York Times bestselling author of The Light We Lost

“. . . a riveting, compelling story–but it’s also an important one, reminding us that history’s darkest aspects can echo forward into our present day and that there is so much work left to do in the fight for freedom and equality.” –Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The German Wife

A routine immigration case, a shocking legacy. Jessa Gidney’s quest for justice draws her into the heart of an abhorrent conspiracy. As she uncovers her personal ties to a heartbreaking past, her life takes a dramatic turn, in this emotionally riveting novel inspired by true events.

New York, 2022. Jessa Gidney is trying to have it all–a high-powered legal career, a meaningful marriage, and hopefully, one day, a child. But when her professional ambitions come up short and Jessa finds herself at a turning point, she leans into her family’s history of activism by taking on pro bono work at a nearby ICE detention center. There she meets Isobel Pérez–a young mother fighting to stay with her daughter–but as she gets to know Isobel, an unsettling revelation about Isobel’s health leads Jessa to uncover a horrifying pattern of medical malpractice within the detention facility. One that shockingly has ties to her own family.

Virginia, 1927. Carrie Buck is an ordinary young woman in the center of an extraordinary legal battle at the forefront of the American eugenics conversation. From a poor family, she was only six years old when she first became a ward of the state. Uneducated and without any support, she spends her youth dreaming about a different future–one separate from her exploitative foster family–unknowing of the ripples her small, country life will have on an entire nation.

As Jessa works to assemble a case against the prison and the crimes she believes are being committed there, she discovers the landmark Supreme Court case involving Carrie Buck. Her connection to the case, however, is deeper and much more personal than she ever knew–sending her down new paths that will leave her forever changed and determined to fight for these women, no matter the cost.

Alternating between the past and present, and deftly tackling timely-yet-timeless issues such as reproductive rights, incarceration, and society’s expectations of women and mothers, Counting Backwards is a compelling reminder that progress is rarely a straight line and always hard-won. A moving story of two remarkable women that you’ll remember for years to come.