A review by angelicardale
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

if you told me this book was written by a man, i'd believe you. spoilers:

this book was just not good imho. nothing ever happened that actually provided adequate discussion in a way that speculative fiction should. its a dystopian "feminist" science fiction piece and yet had nothing interesting to say, other than regurgitating the ideal american nuclear family belief that is not new to literally anybody. there was no diversity or alternative perspectives on life given, literally every single character (including the nameless main character who should be an outlier by all means!) is just a cishet white woman who comes from nearly identical pasts and has no real identity. pretty much every character just blurs together and any attempt at queer representation fell flat considering its just women getting together sexually, never romantically, out of convenience and no sexual or romantic attachment (just as a placeholder for men, i guess). i felt as though the author really wanted certain scenes to be emotional and thought-provoking, but never did i feel any of that, especially considering how detached from reality and emotion the main character (whose pov we read) is. all of the "feminist" aspects were just unbelievably sexist, homophobic, fatphobic, transphobic, and ableist. i was severely disappointed. i did enjoy certain aspects (the prose was pretty good? and the premise is interesting? and the few "plot" points we Did receive were at times intriguing) so i'll be giving it 2 stars but yeesh. just about no plot, no interesting characters, nothing poignant to say, lots of plot holes and no logical conclusion or point to any of it...anyway thank you for coming to my tedtalk