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

Gemma Langella

"In that case, what were man for?" I asked.

amari

Sashi

Sometimes the women pitied me, saying that at least they'd known real life, and I was very jealous of them, but they died, as I am about to die, and what does having lived mean once you are no longer alive?

I have spent my whole life doing I don't know what, but it hasn't made me happy. I have a few drops of blood left, that is the only libation I can offer destiny, which has chosen me.

Then they felt sorry for me, because l'd never experience love, and it was the samne as when they talked about chocolate or the joys of a long, hot bath; I believed them without really being able to imagine what they were talking about.

Sometimes, you can use what you know, but that's not what counts most. I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it's any use, but purely for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I’ll never be able to use it.

You have so little idea what it meant to have a destiny that you can't understand what it means to be deprived as we are.

Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering?

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.

I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.

Anastasia Illner

If the only thing that differentiates us from animals is the fact that we hide to defecate, then being human rests on very little, I thought.

sina (she/her) 

If the only thing that differentiates us from animals is the fact that we hide to defecate, then being human rests on very little, I thought. 

Chenay Kamara

Such a though provoking read! I feel like i just need to sit and reflect on what it is i’ve just read. Beautifully written and has just left me with so many questions. Highly recommend! 

Aims

The love I have for this book and Jacqueline Harpman, is immeasurable. My favourite read of the year. It was elegant, expressive, disturbing, honest and bittersweet. 

Starting it off with the curiosity and wonder about a life she once (barely) lived, and the slow descent into that freedom becoming her demise was a slope that left me feeling so empty. 

It was haunting and will continue to haunt me.

The love I have for this book and Jacqueline Harpman, is immeasurable. My favourite read of the year. It was elegant, expressive, disturbing, honest and bittersweet. 

Starting it off with the curiosity and wonder about a life she once (barely) lived, and the slow descent into that freedom becoming her demise was a slope that left me feeling so empty. 

It was haunting and will continue to haunt me.

i love speculative fiction that poses who would we be without the structures of society or capitalism, without an understanding of the world we’re living in, without patriarchy… the answer our protagonist finds, right from the beginning, is yes, we would still be human

marlisa

Gut wrenching. Thought provoking. Poignant. 

Jillian Roberts

aica

there's no way it's only 188 pages! I was so immersed in the storyline that I could vividly imagine the scenes, feeling the loneliness, horror, and terrifying emotions, all in just 188 pages. as I read, I honestly couldn’t predict the plot, though I had many expectations. I kept questioning everything until the very end, expecting answers. but, how dare you author! You left me hanging!! I'm even more amazed that it was written by a woman in the ‘90s... a true masterpiece, I must say

how scary the world can be, how lonely and beautiful it is to survive it

petrina

This shoulda been a short story and even then it would've been meh 

Regan Martin

I had a fun time reading this. I resonated a lot with the main character from an autistic perspective, but she was just raised in isolation as opposed to being canonically neurodivergent. Either way, I felt a kinship with her, particularly the fact that her curiosity was a driving force for her. However, because of my need for answers, this book left me wanting a bit more in terms of those answers. While I can appreciate the focus of the book isn’t necessarily to answer every single burning question I have, that’s not how my brain operates. I was fascinated by the journey the character goes through, but I did feel slightly dissatisfied by the end. That’s the reason for the missing star in my rating.

Nik ✨

easily one of my favourite and top 3 reads of all time. 

a book that is so gut wrenchingly bleak and yet one that is extremely thought provoking. 

the book explores themes of isolation, freedom, friendship, identity, hope, and most importantly solitude. it left me staring at a wall for an hour after finishing. what makes us human? when we’re stripped down to bare necessities, how much of is left? how much of our desire (to love, to be free, to have knowledge etc) is intrinsic? how much of it remains without any external influence? 

the prose isn’t lyrical, but the sharpness and bluntness of it immerses us in the reality of solitude. whilst the extreme openness of the book, and the lack of any clarity leaves us with quite some frustration, it also gives us more questions. how much freedom do we really have? how much clarity will we ever have in life? 

satvi

easily one of my favourite and top 3 reads of all time. 

a book that is so gut wrenchingly bleak and yet one that is extremely thought provoking. 

the book explores themes of isolation, freedom, friendship, identity, hope, and most importantly solitude. it left me staring at a wall for an hour after finishing. what makes us human? when we’re stripped down to bare necessities, how much of is left? how much of our desire (to love, to be free, to have knowledge etc) is intrinsic? how much of it remains without any external influence? 

the prose isn’t lyrical, but the sharpness and bluntness of it immerses us in the reality of solitude. whilst the extreme openness of the book, and the lack of any clarity leaves us with quite some frustration, it also gives us more questions. how much freedom do we really have? how much clarity will we ever have in life? 

This was my first book on my reading journey as an adult, and what a way to start! The story is thought-provoking and haunting in the best way possible. It explores profound themes like identity, isolation, and freedom. What’s interesting is how complicated freedom can be. There's a quote from the narrator that really sticks with me: "I was free, but it was the most terrible kind of freedom, the kind that made you wonder whether it wouldn't be better to be back in the cage."This book left me staring at the wall, questioning everything—like what truly makes us human and how deeply society shapes our identities and choices. It also makes you appreciate everything you have in life because the young girl is so content with the smallest things and doesn’t take anything for granted. It’s definitely the kind of read that stays with you long after you finish.

Salma

Belinda Wilson 

as Rachel Weisz once said: "I love women. And I love their company."

Yes, but. I witness so many people holding on to life so tightly and they didn't end up in this book. All the characters were more like me. And the art urge was miniscule. The general feeling was claustrophobia. But I loved it and I love how she stayed true to not knowing. Which, to me, reads like an ultimate truth.

Dora Tominic

Disclaimer: this is not a review.

Yes, but. I witness so many people holding on to life so tightly and they didn't end up in this book. All the characters were more like me. And the art urge was miniscule. The general feeling was claustrophobia. But I loved it and I love how she stayed true to not knowing. Which, to me, reads like an ultimate truth.

Truthfully when I started reading this book I was expecting it to be some other wordly dream based on the title (a world without men doesn’t sound so bad) but it turned out to be extremely haunting and actually not a world anyone would like to be in at all. The women were living in an extremely dystopian concentration camp-esque cage but the fate that followed their escape was weirdly even more despondent. I enjoyed the changing relationship of the women and thought the naivety of the narrator was probably the best part, it made her experience feel all the more real. My major critiques: The pacing was too slow for my liking, at one point the plot felt so redundant I wanted to take them out of their misery myself, and the worst of all the open-endness of it all drove me crazy. If you’re a reader who wants an answer, don’t expect it from this one.  

Rana Sulieman

Karmen 

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered...if indeed there were crimes. The youngest of forty--a child with no name and no past--she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden--in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights--she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings. Then everything changes...and nothing changes. A young woman who has never known men--a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints--must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been...and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom. A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered...if indeed there were crimes.The youngest of forty--a child with no name and no past--she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden--in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights--she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.Then everything changes...and nothing changes.A young woman who has never known men--a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints--must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been...and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.

I Who Never Known Men

I so desperately wanted to love this book so so much but it isn't until the second half of the book when your interest kicks in with a change in pace of the protagonist and her story. The first part was overly dense and, the pacing felt terrible.

diya

armoni mayes

4.5 stars.

I am still trying to gather my thoughts on this novel, and trying to push past my normal yearning for some kind of plot twist that would explain what happened in the world to put so many men and women into underground bunkers. Because the author did not elaborate on this information I am only to assume that it was not the most important thing to focus on while reading. 

I believe this is an excellent example of what it might be like to grow up in a world when you do not even realize what the ‘world’ means. I can only imagine what our MC would have experienced if not for the other women around her that could remember the past considering she could not recall any of her own memories. 

“I will only be truly dead if nobody ever comes, if the centuries, then the millennia go by for so long that this planet which I no longer believe is Earth, no longer exists. (pg. 184)”

the fact that i'll never find out the truth about what happened to these women will always bother me. but i guess that's the beauty of this book. i became so invested and emotionally attached to it that it left me wanting for more.

lerie

A prize-winning, "womanist" novel--part thriller, part science-fiction fantasy--traces the emotional and sexual awakening of one woman, the youngest of a group imprisoned in a world of men who attempt to dehumanize them. IP.

A Novel

tori 👻

"Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence."

isabelle

I absolutely loved how this book felt so organic as it is told from the perspective of someone who has very little knowledge

Very well-written. I loved especially the hints and "spoilers" by the narrator. Would've loved to have the slightest clue about all those mysteries, but I understand how the point is to leave them as that. Maybe a bit slow considering nothing actually happens throughout the whole book.

I Who Have Never Known Men

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