I Who Have Never Known Men
Book of the Week: I Who Have never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Reviewed (and adored) by our very own Franca 🌸
“‘I Who Have never Known Men’ follows the life of a young woman, who, from childhood, has been imprisoned in an underground bunker along with 39 grown women. None of them know how they got there, why they’re being kept there or what is happening in the world outside. The guards that patrol the cage won’t speak to them but are always watching, making sure they don’t harm each other or themselves. One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee but the key to the cage is still in the lock and so the women, for the first time in what they assume must be around 13 years, leave the bunker.
The world outside is nothing like they remember it. They must now learn to live in nature, build their own houses, look for food and water and decide whether or not they can live with never knowing what happened to them.
Our unnamed narrator, who cannot remember a time before the bunker, is more restless than the others, more eager to go and explore. She sees the world with fresh eyes, letting us, the reader, question our own morals, values and reality.
I cannot even begin to express how much I loved this book. It is beautifully written, full of fleshed out character descriptions and never boring. I spent thirty minutes one morning crying at a certain passage and had to take another thirty to contemplate what I had just read. It’s a deeply touching story without being too emotional or trying too hard. There’s nothing pretentious about it and although the story takes place in a world so far from our own, there is something incredibly human about in every single character, every single action.
It’s a story about the importance of female friendship, of respect, trust, and honour. And though it seems dark and dystopian, it is most of all a story about love.
Truly one of the most surprising, inspiring, and moving books I’ve read. I cannot recommend it enough.
5/5 🌟”