I Who Have Never Known Men

by , ,

Audiobook

English language

Published July 22, 2021 by Random House.

ISBN:
978-1-5291-9144-8
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(3 reviews)

Deep underground, thirty-nine women are kept in isolation in a cage. Above ground, a world awaits. Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus? Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. But, as the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. The woman who will never know men.

13 editions

reviewed I Who Have Never Known Men by Sophie Mackintosh

Really enjoyed this one.

This book shall be my go-to reference for enjoyable stories that leave you with no answers for what is going on. We don't even know if they're on earth or not. Everything written in the book is learned through the main character who has never known life outside of the bunker. It adds an extra flair of surrealism as she gets to see and witness all these new things that the other women with her took for granted.

This copy contains an afterward referencing Jacqueline's family having to flee their home during the Nazi invasion and the likelihood that the other bunkers full of dead bodies was influenced by the concentration camps. This added an entirely new level to the book for me.

Another audiobook that was well-done. The narrator did a really great job at conveying the innocence that the MC would have had due to not knowing the …

reviewed I Who Have Never Known Men by Sophie Mackintosh

Philosophical Thought Experiment with Sci-Fi Dystopia Trappings

No rating

This is dressed as a sci-fi dystopia, but was very much a meditation on what it means to be human when stripped away from society and what society tells us to value. The protagonist has to carve out meaning in a world that's empty of meaning and conventional sources of it.

I surmised fairly early that this was too artsy/European to give an answer as to the premise, and I was correct.

The book generally was feminist, but less gender-specific and more universal than I expected. Late in the novel she reads Shakespeare and Don Quixote, and it's interesting to me that, never having heard a man's voice, she likely would have imagined all of the characters sounding like women.

Found it strange that the other women never named the protagonist.

Audiobook narration was well done and the reader did not try to perform in a way that was distracting.

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Subjects

  • Fiction, fantasy, general
  • New York Times reviewed

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