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4.25 AVERAGE
4.25 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think the hype made me enjoy it less. It’s fine? I like the lack of explanation and lack of clarity. It felt I guess like a heavy-handed allegory?
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So. The premise is gripping: forty women, caged underground, watched over by silent male guards. No memory of how they got there. No clocks, no daylight, no backstory. And among them, one girl (the narrator, unnamed and young) who has (drumroll) never known men, never known the world, and has no memory of anything outside this cage. She’s a blank slate.
And... so, it turns out, is the book. Existential dread served cold. Not for a reader looking for closure, character depth, or plot progression.
And... so, it turns out, is the book. Existential dread served cold. Not for a reader looking for closure, character depth, or plot progression.
We get sparse, eerie prose sets up what feels like a haunting mystery, with the slow-burn promise that we’ll discover... something. At some points, wishing for anything. But instead, we’re given crumbs, teased with significance, and ultimately denied any catharsis. When the guards vanish and the women escape, the surface world offers no relief. Just more endless bleakness, wandering, wondering, and reflecting. Until it doesn’t. Because the book ends.
Once I've accepted that this is NOT a plot-driven novel, I can appreciate this as an existential meditation (wearing a dystopian dress, maybe?). The absence of men isn’t the point. It’s the absence of answers, of structure, of anything concrete. We lean into the unknowable and it just echoes around us.
And for some readers, or in certain moods, that works. It took me a while to get in the headspace, and I never fully shook the internal screaming for SOME answers. ANY answers. The build-up felt promised. But the lack of resolution felt like a betrayal. It wasn't even a twist, just a gradual lights out. And while I can appreciate the allegorical layers (identity, trauma, isolation, the search for meaning in a senseless world), it still felt like being handed a locked box and told the mystery was the act of wondering what’s inside.
It's good for a slow, bleak, metaphor-heavy narratives that leaves you unsettled. It's definitely a short story where nothing is explained, and nothing needs to be. But if you, like me, read speculative fiction hoping for some emotional or narrative payoff, prepare for frustration. It’s interesting. It’s unique. But it’s also slightly unsatisfying.
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Abandonment
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt
Minor: Kidnapping