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why_eliza_reads 's review for:
I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book.
5 stars. Absolutely amazing, I can't believe my 10th grade English teacher didn't make us read this. She should have.
My therapist asked me recently, what do you do after you survive the zombie apocalypse? What is the goal after surviving? What do you live for if you are the last one(s)? Somehow, I stumbled on a book that attempts to answer that.
We follow a group of 40 women, who escape a strange captivity and enter a stranger landscape. Only one is a teenager when they escape, the rest are quite a bit older than her. It is through her, "The Child" she is called, that humanity is called into question. She is human, but is it her DNA that makes us so, or does the collective experience of society make us humane? Does her missed experiences make her less of a person? Or is it her incessant thirst for knowledge that makes her more human than anyone else in her group? Or has the trauma and a robbed childhood othered her too much to make her a complete human? And when you aren't fighting to survive, and instead are fighting to keep your spirit alive, is that when a human is truly made? Is humanity just our spirit yearning to grow? And in the end, does it matterwhen she is the last of her group to die ?
And the fact that these people are all women. No men. How would things have been different if their group had been more diverse? Would they have tried to continue the human race? Would a new generation given life new meaning? And did that mean that The Child gave the other women some sort of meaning? Or, because there was no hope of a generation after all of them died, did they just pity The Child? And was it the woman's collective backgrounds that made them less daring, and would they have perhaps thrived in stead of survived if they had been a little less grounded (dare I even say, a little less human?) like The Child?
And how much of our humanity is linked to our bodies? A person still grows and becomes an adult even if they have no concept of humanity. Their bodies change, hormones wax and wane, hair changes colors, hearts beat. Is the connection to your body and your autonomy what makes you human?
I think this book has literally changed my life, I have so many thoughts. About humanity and womanhood, and the intersection of both. I can't write them all here, my brain is churning.
This book could be analyzed for centuries. It recites such a deep story and makes us explore so much - and yet answers so little.
5 stars. Absolutely amazing, I can't believe my 10th grade English teacher didn't make us read this. She should have.
My therapist asked me recently, what do you do after you survive the zombie apocalypse? What is the goal after surviving? What do you live for if you are the last one(s)? Somehow, I stumbled on a book that attempts to answer that.
We follow a group of 40 women, who escape a strange captivity and enter a stranger landscape. Only one is a teenager when they escape, the rest are quite a bit older than her. It is through her, "The Child" she is called, that humanity is called into question. She is human, but is it her DNA that makes us so, or does the collective experience of society make us humane? Does her missed experiences make her less of a person? Or is it her incessant thirst for knowledge that makes her more human than anyone else in her group? Or has the trauma and a robbed childhood othered her too much to make her a complete human? And when you aren't fighting to survive, and instead are fighting to keep your spirit alive, is that when a human is truly made? Is humanity just our spirit yearning to grow? And in the end, does it matter
And the fact that these people are all women. No men. How would things have been different if their group had been more diverse? Would they have tried to continue the human race? Would a new generation given life new meaning? And did that mean that The Child gave the other women some sort of meaning? Or, because there was no hope of a generation after all of them died, did they just pity The Child? And was it the woman's collective backgrounds that made them less daring, and would they have perhaps thrived in stead of survived if they had been a little less grounded (dare I even say, a little less human?) like The Child?
And how much of our humanity is linked to our bodies? A person still grows and becomes an adult even if they have no concept of humanity. Their bodies change, hormones wax and wane, hair changes colors, hearts beat. Is the connection to your body and your autonomy what makes you human?
I think this book has literally changed my life, I have so many thoughts. About humanity and womanhood, and the intersection of both. I can't write them all here, my brain is churning.
This book could be analyzed for centuries. It recites such a deep story and makes us explore so much - and yet answers so little.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Terminal illness
Moderate: Suicide, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt