Jacqueline Harpman

A haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic tale of female friendship and intimacy. 'A small miracle' The New York Times 'For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed' Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. 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. 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. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, MAN BOOKER PRIZE-LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF THE WATER CURE

I Who Have Never Known Men

Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes

nhu ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹

It is strange that I am dying from a diseased womb, I who have never had periods and who have never known men.

But if that person comes, they will read them and I will have a time in their mind. 

I felt like sitting down on the ground and weeping, but, luckily, my anger was the stronger and drove me on. 

It all seemed incredibly strange, sinister and moving. I felt the burden of the inexplicable, of my life, of that world to which I was the sole witness.

They’d been custodians of the absurd, carrying out orders whose purpose they were unaware of, themselves having to submit to incomprehensible rules, and perhaps they had no more idea of our identity than we did of theirs. 

Of course, all I have to do is try, but I don’t seem to want to. And what does it matter if I’ve become mute in a world where there is no one to talk to?

We had survived the prison, the plain and the loss of all hope, but the women had discovered that survival is no more than putting off the moment of death. 

Sometimes, as I returned to the group around the fire, I’d feel a rush of emotion; I was moved by the flickering of the flames in the night, the silhouettes of the women resting, the interplay of words or Denise’s reedy voice carrying the laments of another era across the plain, and I understood what Anthea called beauty, which apparently had been so abundant in their world.”

Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.

You’ve never seen a child, you don’t know what it means – their vulnerability, their trust, the love you feel for them, the anxiety, being ready to lay down your life to save them, and it’s unbearable to imagine a child’s pain.

“We come from a world where it wasn’t necessary, everything was ready-made and we never asked how things were produced,’ replied Frances.

I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.

I felt as if this pain would never be appeased, that it had me in its grip for ever, that it would prevent me from devoting myself to anything else, and that I was allowing it to do so. 

Grace McCarter

Do people build roads that suddenly vanish? 

It was plain that this time they would not be caught unawares, as must have happened in the past. That they wouldn’t allow themselves to be overtaken by events, like terrified creatures that could be led to the slaughterhouse because they could not conceive of the slaughterhouse.

What a horrid little prig I was. I prided myself and revelled in having found a distraction that I thought was extraordinary. I felt as if I was being hounded by a mob, whereas we were all equally helpless prisoners. Isolated due to my young age and the constraints imposed on us, perhaps – like the others – I needed to create an illusion to enable me to cope with the misery.

Aina

Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others.

Feelings remain a mystery to me, perhaps because the sensations associated with them are foreign to me, or because they repel me as did physical contact, which seems to be so important in love.

Death is sometimes so discreet that it steals in noiselessly, stays for only a moment and carries off its prey, and I didn't notice the change.

And what does it matter if l've become mute in a world where there is no one to talk to?

None wanted to endure pain and I think they were in a hurry to die. I don't know how many I killed – I who count everything, that was one thing I didn't count.

The women had discovered that survival is no more than putting off the moment of death.

I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all.

the census on this book is divided, but i personally love it! packs a punch in a short amount of pages. i love these thought-provoking and reflective novels. also, a world without men sounds nice. 

nattie

"i can say that time exists, but it has passed me by without my feeling it." 

the narrator calling her freedom "hollow" had me with my head in my hands. 

from the moment when she sees the man dead, the mattress man the narrator starts to describe a surge of emotions grief > freedom > love > loss > loneliness. without knowing, what personhood is, without actually experiencing many relationships the humans are still capable of humanness. it was hilarious yet gut wrenching. you can't escape what you are. the open ending ? what was the reason ! 

the ending line has to be one of the most heart shattering words I've ever read.

anyway ! a world without no men, feels tempting. 

walna

horrifying, horrifying, horrifying 

"i can say that time exists, but it has passed me by without my feeling it." 

the narrator calling her freedom "hollow" had me with my head in my hands. 

from the moment when she sees the man dead, the mattress man the narrator starts to describe a surge of emotions grief > freedom > love > loss > loneliness. without knowing, what personhood is, without actually experiencing many relationships the humans are still capable of humanness. it was hilarious yet gut wrenching. you can't escape what you are. the open ending ? what was the reason ! 

the ending line has to be one of the most heart shattering words I've ever read.

anyway ! a world without no men, feels tempting. 

Never before have I encountered an author with so much to say and so little trust that the reader would understand what they have to say. 

Average excerpt: “I looked over and saw the table, but of course, I didn’t know it was a table because I had never seen a table before. I was born in the bunker and had never seen the real world. I was different. While the other women didn’t choose to think about things the way I wanted to think about things, I thought about things that way which is why I knew I was different. It had always been that way.”

Finn James

Never before have I encountered an author with so much to say and so little trust that the reader would understand what they have to say. 

Average excerpt: “I looked over and saw the table, but of course, I didn’t know it was a table because I had never seen a table before. I was born in the bunker and had never seen the real world. I was different. While the other women didn’t choose to think about things the way I wanted to think about things, I thought about things that way which is why I knew I was different. It had always been that way.”

maybe it’s just because i’ve just been relating every piece of media i consume as of late to recent events in my life but this book made me want to **** ******

prachi

Compelling speculative fiction. This made me think so much about what it would be like to simply survive when everything that makes you human and gives you pleasure has been denied to you, where you create the illusion of autonomy in mundane decisions, and the difference between freedom that has been taken away and freedom that has never been experienced. There’s so much to unpack in this around social experiments, emotions, relationships, love, dystopias, utopias and the different ways in which we can face death. I know that I will be thinking about this for a long time.

Laura Dobie

I’ve been looking forward to finally reading this book for a long time now, but unfortunately it felt really flat for me. It’s very rare that a book leaves me feeling absolutely nothing, not anger, or sadness, or happiness or anything, it didn’t affect me in any way.

The writing was okay, there was nothing particularly abhorrent about it, it just felt perfunctory, like someone narrating a very boring sequence of events. I didn’t find anything about the prose particularly interesting, and nothing about the way this book was writing touched me at all.

Usually I don’t mind books without a plot if the characters can hold my interest, but for a book written about the lives of 40 women, it really didn’t try to delve into them or their personalities at all. In fact, it felt at times that the imaginary men got more thought afforded to them. And that’s another thing I don’t understand, why was the focus of this book on men so much? Literally why were they important? The main character’s infatuation with the male guard and her fantasies around him made no sense to me at all. She who has never known men felt enough for some random guard (her jailer mind you) to be able to orgasm just from the thought of him, but couldn’t understand why some of the other women coupled up? And even when the other women did get together it was explained as “we give each other whatever comfort we can” as if it was merely a last resort because there were no men. The whole thing felt so strange to me and I felt like it had really backwards ideas, and those were expressed through a character who is supposedly a blank slate. Speaking of her, having a character like this be the narrator for this book probably aided in me not feeling a single thing. The other female characters are given barely any characteristics beyond very surface level traits. They were so flat and the writing was so monotonous I couldn’t grab on to anything, I couldn’t feel any connection to anyone. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why this is considered feminist.

I felt like this book just asked questions for the sake of asking questions, and didn’t have anything particularly new to say. Even when it did ask a question I hadn’t thought of before, it wasn’t particularly profound and I just didn’t care. It didn’t lead me to think or feel anything deep and I felt annoyed because I could tell it was trying. Just… what the hell guys, what am I missing here?

bel 

I’ve been looking forward to finally reading this book for a long time now, but unfortunately it felt really flat for me. It’s very rare that a book leaves me feeling absolutely nothing, not anger, or sadness, or happiness or anything, it didn’t affect me in any way.

The writing was okay, there was nothing particularly abhorrent about it, it just felt perfunctory, like someone narrating a very boring sequence of events. I didn’t find anything about the prose particularly interesting, and nothing about the way this book was writing touched me at all.

Usually I don’t mind books without a plot if the characters can hold my interest, but for a book written about the lives of 40 women, it really didn’t try to delve into them or their personalities at all. In fact, it felt at times that the imaginary men got more thought afforded to them. And that’s another thing I don’t understand, why was the focus of this book on men so much? Literally why were they important? The main character’s infatuation with the male guard and her fantasies around him made no sense to me at all. She who has never known men felt enough for some random guard (her jailer mind you) to be able to orgasm just from the thought of him, but couldn’t understand why some of the other women coupled up? And even when the other women did get together it was explained as “we give each other whatever comfort we can” as if it was merely a last resort because there were no men. The whole thing felt so strange to me and I felt like it had really backwards ideas, and those were expressed through a character who is supposedly a blank slate. Speaking of her, having a character like this be the narrator for this book probably aided in me not feeling a single thing. The other female characters are given barely any characteristics beyond very surface level traits. They were so flat and the writing was so monotonous I couldn’t grab on to anything, I couldn’t feel any connection to anyone. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why this is considered feminist.

I felt like this book just asked questions for the sake of asking questions, and didn’t have anything particularly new to say. Even when it did ask a question I hadn’t thought of before, it wasn’t particularly profound and I just didn’t care. It didn’t lead me to think or feel anything deep and I felt annoyed because I could tell it was trying. Just… what the hell guys, what am I missing here?

I loved the way this was written but I wish there were chapters to help break it up a bit. I also can’t decide if I love or hate the way that everything was left open-ended. Why did the sirens go off? Where did the guards go? Where are these cabins actually located? Is she the last person on earth? So many questions!

Alicia Evans

Many post-apocalyptic or dystopian novels revolve around questions being answered; this one answers hardly any and is so rewarding for its lonely, introspective journey. What does it mean to be human, to be a woman, in a world post-humanity?

alice

rory

Emilie Fournier

thought-provoking and beautifully explores the essence of humanity and womanhood. one of my favorite reads for sure. 

gishelle

witnessing the narrators curiosity dwindle with age was sad asf. the vibes were once again immaculate in this, i know it’s speculative fiction but like damn i wanted to know so much more about the world and events that lead to the start of this novel

Honestly took me ages to read mainly because of the big the chapters were so I could only pick it up to read when I had absolutely nothing else to do and would not be disturbed for a long time. I did find it very interesting and engaging, was curious from the start to the end and unfortunately still no answers? I guess we will just never know why, how, where or who :’) 

Loved seeing the relationships between the women and their journey after escaping. Their little traditions they created was very moving and I found myself crying way more than I expected to. Something about it was just very heavy and felt very raw? I’m not sure how to explain it but it was very touching in a way I couldn’t really comprehend. Perhaps it was the presence of humanity and sympathy in a world where these women were treated inhumanely and then left alone in a place without any other humans? Or maybe it was the overall idea of what humanity is and isn’t? Idk all I know is I was crying a lot :’) Got very attached to certain characters (MY SWEET SWEET ANTHEA!!) which I always love to seeee! 

Overall, felt very confused, curious and touched throughout while also feeling unsatisfied and frustrated at the ending (but I didn’t see it as a negative at all! I liked the open ending with the lingering mystery and unanswered questions). 

Honestly took me ages to read mainly because of the big the chapters were so I could only pick it up to read when I had absolutely nothing else to do and would not be disturbed for a long time. I did find it very interesting and engaging, was curious from the start to the end and unfortunately still no answers? I guess we will just never know why, how, where or who :’) 

Loved seeing the relationships between the women and their journey after escaping. Their little traditions they created was very moving and I found myself crying way more than I expected to. Something about it was just very heavy and felt very raw? I’m not sure how to explain it but it was very touching in a way I couldn’t really comprehend. Perhaps it was the presence of humanity and sympathy in a world where these women were treated inhumanely and then left alone in a place without any other humans? Or maybe it was the overall idea of what humanity is and isn’t? Idk all I know is I was crying a lot :’) Got very attached to certain characters (MY SWEET SWEET ANTHEA!!) which I always love to seeee! 

Overall, felt very confused, curious and touched throughout while also feeling unsatisfied and frustrated at the ending (but I didn’t see it as a negative at all! I liked the open ending with the lingering mystery and unanswered questions). 

This was my first dystopian book in either ever or God knows how long and I wasn’t mad at it except it was a little boring at times. Did I finish it in two sittings? Yes but I believe it could’ve had a little more depth. But pleasantly surprised as I do not normally like this genre.

Angeleeka

This book was fucked up and depressing but also hopeful. I desperately wanted there to be an answer for why what happened happened. But despite that I think it had showcased a womanhood, humanity, and how even in the face of violence humans can do good. I thought it was quite interesting the theme of them being on another planet came up so much insinuating that humans couldn’t be capable of this horror.  Honestly maybe they were since the landscape was so unrecognizable but yeah. This book made me constantly think and I’m still thinking about it.

Ashley Denktas

Left me with more questions than answers, but I think that’s the point. What does it mean to be human? 

Emily Lucie

Thought-provoking novel that poses the question- what makes someone human? What defines humanity? Very well written. I will be thinking about this book for a good while. Unfortunately the unanswered questions are going to haunt me- but I also think it’s what makes the story so good. 

Brittany Halladay

Beautiful prose; each sentence pulls you in to the next. An exploration of female friendship, love, and being human. 

Lindy

this novel is a beautiful—yet unsettling—exploration of what it means to be human.

i found myself on the edge of my seat; the writing is immersive and thought-provoking, effortlessly blending the suspense of the narrative with its philosophical depth. i also think it’s clever that a book examining the meaning of life does not attempt to answer all the questions you may have while reading it. you feel curious before you even know the story and you remain curious long after you turn the last page. 

i believe i need to read more speculative fiction (even if it leaves me in an existential crisis afterward) because i love how the openness of a story allows each reader to take away something unique from it.

this novel is a beautiful—yet unsettling—exploration of what it means to be human.

i found myself on the edge of my seat; the writing is immersive and thought-provoking, effortlessly blending the suspense of the narrative with its philosophical depth. i also think it’s clever that a book examining the meaning of life does not attempt to answer all the questions you may have while reading it. you feel curious before you even know the story and you remain curious long after you turn the last page. 

~

i believe i need to read more speculative fiction (even if it leaves me in an existential crisis afterward) because i love how the openness of a story allows each reader to take away something unique from it.

What if the reason you survive, despite everything, is because you have no memories of the past? Nothing of importance to anchor you in grief, nothing to make loss linger like a shadow. But in return, you are left with the endless what ifs; adrift in a life that never changes, with no friends, no shelter—just a nameless existence in a vast world of nothingness. And yet, somehow, you hold onto enough dignity to still call it a life because death is nothing but a string of incredible luck, the only certainty in an otherwise shapeless fate.

🏹

What if the reason you survive, despite everything, is because you have no memories of the past? Nothing of importance to anchor you in grief, nothing to make loss linger like a shadow. But in return, you are left with the endless what ifs; adrift in a life that never changes, with no friends, no shelter—just a nameless existence in a vast world of nothingness. And yet, somehow, you hold onto enough dignity to still call it a life because death is nothing but a string of incredible luck, the only certainty in an otherwise shapeless fate.


No, this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner, and everything here will be mine.

Literally read this in one sitting, and I’m still so shocked by the ending. 

A very intriguing and merciless reflection of what it is to be human. I found interesting how she kept saying that she was not as human as the other women, as she was raised in the bunker and didn’t have a life before that. But as the book goes on, she is the most human of all of them by wanting to explore and survive. 

Very devastating how she never knew what love was and that it is not only platonic, until Anthea passes and she realizes she loved her. 

Denisse Garcia Ramírez 

Literally read this in one sitting, and I’m still so shocked by the ending. 

A very intriguing and merciless reflection of what it is to be human. I found interesting how she kept saying that she was not as human as the other women, as she was raised in the bunker and didn’t have a life before that. But as the book goes on, she is the most human of all of them by wanting to explore and survive. 

Very devastating how she never knew what love was and that it is not only platonic, until Anthea passes and she realizes she loved her. 

this was so good, i really enjoyed reading the narrator’s train of thought. i loved how it was essentially her journal; her story. but not knowing what happened might kill me

taylor

This book SLAPS! I'm still chewing on it, mentally. Will revisit to review when I'm ready.

I Who Have Never Known Men

Reviews

Highlights