I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

Discover the haunting, heart-breaking post-apocalyptic tale of female friendship and intimacy set in a deserted world.

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 an 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.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, BOOKER PRIZE-LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF THE WATER CURE

Reviewed by SilverThistle on

3 of 5 stars

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Unsettling and very frustrating. Good story, but don't expect any questions to be answered. I turned the last page and still wasn't any the wiser as to what was going on. If you like Margaret Atwood you'll probably like this one too.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 1 January, 2011: Finished reading
  • 1 January, 2011: Reviewed