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3.23 AVERAGE
3.23 AVERAGE
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
fast-paced
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Disturbingly thought provoking.
While it was gripping and well worth reading, I felt the ending was a bit rushed, and the epilogue betrayed my hope in an anti-patriarchal society.
While it was gripping and well worth reading, I felt the ending was a bit rushed, and the epilogue betrayed my hope in an anti-patriarchal society.
Fuck this book.
Sorry. Let me try again.
Seriously, fuck this book.
I was so excited for this one. It promised feminism and dystopia – two of my favourite things to read about. Instead, what I found in this story were harmful depictions of feminism, a hefty dose of TERF-ness, a hearty dash of ‘not all men’ somehow mixed with a generous splash of ‘men are disgusting animals’, all in a bright pink package with two ‘X’s on the cover.
The world we are plunged into has completely fallen apart, because apparently a crash in the stock market results in people turning feral. This is actually believable, given that we’re living through a pandemic in which people fight over toilet paper in stores and panic-buy gas to the point it all runs out. So far, I’m on board with the story and the idea that people suck, because *gestures at everything*.
The MC is one of the flattest, unlikeable characters I’ve ever read. I’ve legit just forgotten her name – that’s how much she bored me. She spends half her time thinking about Starbucks and manicures and the other half thinking about the frankly useless-sounding rich dude she was married too, before he lost all their money as well as all their friends’ money then drove off a cliff because he just couldn’t take the pressure. Yeah. I’d miss him too. What a catch. Although she doesn’t seem to miss him as much as she misses being a kept woman. At one point when she’s remembering overhearing her friends talking shit about how she’d turned into an image-obsessed, designer-wearing, vapid tradwife, I know we’re supposed to think ‘Wow your friends are so mean!’ but I found myself agreeing with them.
She and her personality-less daughter are on their way to seek refuge in ‘Femlandia’, a womyn-only community founded by Miranda’s (there’s her name) man-hating, feminist mother. And, of course, when they arrive, after *incidents*, things aren’t as they seem…cue the dramatic music.
Before I get into spoilers, let me say, I understand the point the author is trying to make. She doesn’t let you NOT understand it. She hits you over the head with it, several times. Yes, we get it, extremism bad. Men good. Equality, not supremacy. Power corrupts. Yawn.
And now, stop reading if you don’t want spoilers. I’m going to elaborate on the exact reasons I hate this book:
I wanted to know more about the community. But nope, from the second our MC arrives at Femlandia, we’re stuck watching her try to be clever and bring the place down from the inside. Fuck this dumb bitch, I want to know more about their village and its rules, how they work the land, who makes the kaftans. But nope.
Of course a community free from men would be filled with vile women who see no problem with keeping male babies as livestock and forcing them to masturbate into a cup once they are able in order to ensure a supply of semen to keep reproduction going. That’s like, feminism 101. Duh.
If you’re gonna be all ‘not all men’, give us some decent men to relate to. The men in this are either roving gangs of beasts who fuck and kill their way across the barren wasteland, or helpless boy-children held captive by the evil radfems. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot about Miranda’s husband. What a prince.
TERFY TERFY TERF!!! Transwomen are briefly addressed in the beginning, in a rather vile way, when Miranda is ‘inspected’ at the gates of Femlandia to make sure she’s ‘always been a woman’. Some rather nasty and predictable comments about transwomen follow, and then the whole subject is dropped and never mentioned again. And those XX chromosomes identifying one as ‘female’ turn up frequently through the rest of the story.
What the fuck was that little epilogue? The bit where a hundred years in the future, you find out that once again, men are in charge and women are domestic because everyone is just ‘hardwired that way’?
Fuck this book and its harmful depictions of feminism, insulting portrayals of men, rampant transphobia, and boring one-dimensional characters. Oh yeah, thank you Net Galley and HQ for a digital copy of this book in exchange for a brutally honest review.
Sorry. Let me try again.
Seriously, fuck this book.
I was so excited for this one. It promised feminism and dystopia – two of my favourite things to read about. Instead, what I found in this story were harmful depictions of feminism, a hefty dose of TERF-ness, a hearty dash of ‘not all men’ somehow mixed with a generous splash of ‘men are disgusting animals’, all in a bright pink package with two ‘X’s on the cover.
The world we are plunged into has completely fallen apart, because apparently a crash in the stock market results in people turning feral. This is actually believable, given that we’re living through a pandemic in which people fight over toilet paper in stores and panic-buy gas to the point it all runs out. So far, I’m on board with the story and the idea that people suck, because *gestures at everything*.
The MC is one of the flattest, unlikeable characters I’ve ever read. I’ve legit just forgotten her name – that’s how much she bored me. She spends half her time thinking about Starbucks and manicures and the other half thinking about the frankly useless-sounding rich dude she was married too, before he lost all their money as well as all their friends’ money then drove off a cliff because he just couldn’t take the pressure. Yeah. I’d miss him too. What a catch. Although she doesn’t seem to miss him as much as she misses being a kept woman. At one point when she’s remembering overhearing her friends talking shit about how she’d turned into an image-obsessed, designer-wearing, vapid tradwife, I know we’re supposed to think ‘Wow your friends are so mean!’ but I found myself agreeing with them.
She and her personality-less daughter are on their way to seek refuge in ‘Femlandia’, a womyn-only community founded by Miranda’s (there’s her name) man-hating, feminist mother. And, of course, when they arrive, after *incidents*, things aren’t as they seem…cue the dramatic music.
Before I get into spoilers, let me say, I understand the point the author is trying to make. She doesn’t let you NOT understand it. She hits you over the head with it, several times. Yes, we get it, extremism bad. Men good. Equality, not supremacy. Power corrupts. Yawn.
And now, stop reading if you don’t want spoilers. I’m going to elaborate on the exact reasons I hate this book:
I wanted to know more about the community. But nope, from the second our MC arrives at Femlandia, we’re stuck watching her try to be clever and bring the place down from the inside. Fuck this dumb bitch, I want to know more about their village and its rules, how they work the land, who makes the kaftans. But nope.
Of course a community free from men would be filled with vile women who see no problem with keeping male babies as livestock and forcing them to masturbate into a cup once they are able in order to ensure a supply of semen to keep reproduction going. That’s like, feminism 101. Duh.
If you’re gonna be all ‘not all men’, give us some decent men to relate to. The men in this are either roving gangs of beasts who fuck and kill their way across the barren wasteland, or helpless boy-children held captive by the evil radfems. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot about Miranda’s husband. What a prince.
TERFY TERFY TERF!!! Transwomen are briefly addressed in the beginning, in a rather vile way, when Miranda is ‘inspected’ at the gates of Femlandia to make sure she’s ‘always been a woman’. Some rather nasty and predictable comments about transwomen follow, and then the whole subject is dropped and never mentioned again. And those XX chromosomes identifying one as ‘female’ turn up frequently through the rest of the story.
What the fuck was that little epilogue? The bit where a hundred years in the future, you find out that once again, men are in charge and women are domestic because everyone is just ‘hardwired that way’?
Fuck this book and its harmful depictions of feminism, insulting portrayals of men, rampant transphobia, and boring one-dimensional characters. Oh yeah, thank you Net Galley and HQ for a digital copy of this book in exchange for a brutally honest review.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No