ma at the beginning: yeah! fuck men!
me in the middle: men are also human
me at the end: ya know what? fuck men!

I’ve become a huge fan of Christina Dalcher and her thought-provoking dystopian novels. From Vox, where the women of America are silenced, literally, to Master Class, where a child’s “IQ” determines their schooling and every advantage (or disadvantage), and now with Femlandia, where a woman and her daughter move into a women-only colony for safety but instead find more danger than they could imagine.

Miranda did not want to move to Femlandia, but the country where she was living was collapsing and danger was all around her. So, she and her daughter, Emma, had no choice but to move to a colony of only women, that Miranda’s mother, Win, founded years before. At first, it almost seems utopian, but then something is off. Men are not allowed, but babies are born; only girl babies. Miranda becomes more and more disturbed by what is happening, and nothing is as it seems.

As with all her other books, Femlandia deeply disturbed me; not in a horror way, but in a reality way. I toss in a dystopian book every once in a while because of this - it feels so vividly real, like this could happen, and that scares the heck out of me.

Belly button lint is more interesting than this awful book.
Didn't finish, don't recommend.

This novel was a mess from start to finish. It's very clearly geared toward a very specific shallow feminism espoused by middle-class white blonde women who drink from cups that say "Male Tears."

There was no coherent point to the book, no thread to hold it all together; just hot-button issues with buzzwords hanging off them. It was not well-written either, the language used was inelegant and the characters one-dimensional husks. It read like a bad YA self-published on Amazon Kindle.

Dalcher has certainly tapped into the flimsy and superficial form of neoliberal faux-feminism that sells tote-bags and is cheered on by multi-national conglomerates like Nike and Coca Cola, because it makes more money while maintaining the status quo.

2.5 stars

I’ve been thinking about this book for a few days since I finished it and to be honest, while this is a book that made me feel a lot of things, I can’t quite put my thoughts together on this one!

In the midst of economic downfall of apocalyptic scale of looting, starving and no order, Miranda tries to keep herself and her daughter Emma alive, previously a self confessed glamorous woman, until banks lost all money and her husband Nick betrayed her before taking her life, Miranda’s life becomes survival and that can only mean one thing - Femlandia, a society created by her mother Win, and her protege (and perceived replacement) Jen. Located in several states, Femlandia is essentially a woman, or rather womyn (so as not to be associated with men at all) only society, where food and water and security is abundant, but at what price?

Femlandia attempts to answer the question ‘what would it be like if men didn’t exist?’ however I’ll admit I struggled to understand the intent of the book. Vox spoke a bold, clear message about women being silenced, however the message here felt not even like ‘not all men’ nut ‘sometimes women too’. Is this about what happens when you let your hate of men consume you? I just couldn’t grasp it. There is an attempted gang rape on the page by a group of men and Win and her narrative (paralleling Miranda’s) speaks of continuous oppression and abuse at the expense of men, as is the experience of other women in Femlandia. There is a quote in the book about surely if we believe in equality, if a woman can do anything a man can, if she is capable, surely that means she is capable of the same cruelty and dominance. I think perhaps this too is the purpose of the book, but is it necessary? Especially after Vox? This is a book in which women are abusers and emotionally manipulative, women take bodily autonomy away. This latter point is particularly disturbing, it made me mentally stumble, and it’s even more bizarre for how women are the ones who, in truth, don’t have autonomy in so much of this world. I may just not get it, it could be me but i didn’t understand it.

This is a well written book but a disturbing one and I’ll admit I much preferred Vox. Thank you NetGalley for the early copy to review. It wasn’t for me but I’m sure other people will take something more from it.

Maybe it I hadn't watched Y, this would have been better. I couldn't get over the similarities, especially the first half.