I Who Have Never Known Men

One of the best books I’ve ever read. A dystopian story with lots of interesting psychological, sociological, questions.

Unlike many other books. Has to keep reading to figure out what would happen next and how everything would end up. Would recommend.

2.5 stars. I finished this little book in 2 days, it was interesting and somewhat enjoyable read, and thought provoking, but mostly for the wrong and unintentional reasons. I don't understand all the five star reviews, as I found it very problematic as a novel. The major problems are with the framing and writing style. The narrator reveals in the first few of pages that she is alone and dying and is writing the story of what happened to her. As a very young child, with no memories of a before, she is imprisoned in a cage with a group of 40 women. Guards who never speak to them patrol the outside. A little bit spoliery, but not much: They are not allowed to touch each other, and the women don't interact much or talk much to the child, so that she mostly understands through listening to them. They have nothing other than food and bedding. However, despite all this, the narrator is now writing reflectively, with a highly developed vocabulary, about her past. For me this broke the fourth wall and the immersion in the book. I was unable to suspend my disbelief. Later there is some logic to how she could have begun to understand more about the world in which we live, and learn rudimentary reading skills. But to think that she understood what she did, could reflect on abstract concepts in the way she did, and use the extensive vocabulary that she did, is unbelievable even given her later experiences. I have a PhD in Psycho-Linguistics, study children's language development, and all that I have studied and read would not lead to a person with the experiences the protagonist had, being able to write and reason as eloquently as this, or being able to read the few books it is later mentioned she has access to. Also, many people have seen this as a feminist novel, talking about the subjugation of women. And while I agree there are discussions of menstruation, wombs, the importance of children to women, I don't agree it is about the subjugation of women. Spoilers here: When they find other cages, they are just as likely to be men as women. So this is not something done just to women, but to both sexes equally. Neither are the women sexually abused or interfered with as women in any way. I also, take issue with the talk that they are not on Earth. They seem to quickly jump to this conclusion, with very little firm evidence. While later the years of walking through the wilderness, with a lack of seasons and winter, make this likely, there, are other possible explanations as to why they are somewhere that might not be Earth as they know it. They could be in a computer simulation for instance. It could all be a dream by the protagonist who is in a comma. These are as likely explanations as being on another planet. Perhaps even more so, as they can explain why the women who remember other things about their lives in imprisonment (despite a few years being possibly drugged, making the events that lead up to imprisonment and early years blurry), don't recall space exploration, or anything like that. It would also explain why the electricity and water remain on and everything continues working for more than 40 years without apparent maintenance. They and we cannot conclude anything about where they are from the evidence provided. It is a philosophical book, and an interesting book. It made me think, although mostly about what was wrong with the book, and how it could have been written and framed differently to tell the same story but in a more immersive and believable was. So glad I read it, but don't recommend it, and don't understand the many 4 and 5 star reviews.

Reflection on I Who Have Never Known Men. Reading I Who Have Never Known Men was both an intellectual and emotional experience that stayed with me long after I closed the book. On a purely literary level, the novel is brilliant. It is written in a way that keeps the reader engaged without relying on action, spectacle, or explanation. I kept reading because I expected the story to arrive at a point—some revelation, cause, or meaning that would justify the suffering depicted. Instead, the book refuses that comfort. There is no final answer, and in that refusal lies its power. The novel demonstrates that not everything must have a point in order to exist, and that meaninglessness itself can be an honest portrayal of reality. What disturbed me most was the way the story confronts human arrogance. We often believe we understand the world, that we are its rulers, that knowledge is something we own. The book quietly dismantles this illusion. Everything the women in the bunker know has been given to them in fragments, and once knowledge is restricted, their humanity begins to erode. Without curiosity, without the ability to ask “why,” humans are reduced to mere biological existence—eating, sleeping, reproducing, and waiting for death. In contrast, the narrator’s hunger for understanding is what keeps her alive in a deeper sense. Her frustration with the older women’s dismissive response—“What use is it for you to know?”—felt profoundly justified. Knowing is not a luxury; knowing is living. One of the most striking elements of the novel is that the protagonist has no name. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I formed a deep emotional bond with her. I felt compassion for her isolation and suffering and an overwhelming desire to comfort her, even though she exists only as an idea on the page. Her namelessness did not erase her humanity—it sharpened it. Through her thoughts, observations, and memories, she becomes fully real. In reading her story, I felt that I was offering her something she had been denied: recognition. By witnessing her life, I allowed it to have meaning. The absence of answers is what made the novel so unsettling. I wanted to know why the women were imprisoned, who was responsible, and whether their suffering was caused by humans or some greater catastrophe. The story offers no such explanations. This lack of closure forces the reader to confront the possibility that suffering does not always come with reasons. Freedom, when it finally arrives, does not resolve this discomfort. The world outside the bunker offers no more certainty than the world within it—only different forms of waiting. This raised difficult questions: Was escape truly freedom, or merely a postponement of death? Were those who died earlier spared the prolonged agony of unanswered questions? Yet alongside disturbance, the book left me feeling deeply grateful. Grateful for curiosity, for knowledge, for touch, for freedom, and for hope. Death is inevitable for all of us, but what exists between birth and death is not insignificant. The novel made me acutely aware of the richness of that in-between space. In recognizing the deprivation of the nameless girl, I also came to recognize my own life more fully. I see myself. I see how much I know, how much I can feel, and how much I am allowed to wonder. And that, perhaps, is the quiet gift the book leaves behind.

genre: speculative fiction, science fiction, dystopia "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 a vague recollection of their lives before." (Goodreads synopsis) ‘Hello! Is anybody there?’ This book is an allegory for our own shouts in the empty universe. Our seeking for meaning & answers where there are none. It is philosophical, existential, thought provoking. It was a strange read that stayed with me long after I closed the pages. A story with many questions and few answers.

Such a beautiful book. (Spoilers ahead) This book is such a strikingly interesting piece, themes of misogyny, fear, religion and societal constructs headlining and covering up what is wholly a book about the fear of death; the fear of being meaningless. Something so delicate handled so tauntingly, like playing catch with a vase. Not quite on the bridge of shunning the fear of death or denying it, but exploring it, finding boundaries, even wondering if not fearing it is fear in its own way. This book seriously helped me through my death anxiety, it was beautifully written especially for a translated novel.

Excellent 👌

Such a great book. A new classic in my collection. Following the main character through her thoughts over her life of imprisonment vs freedom.. Great book

One of the best books I’ve ever read!!

This book was amazing so much to think about even now its finished.It's left me thinking about so much.Why 40 women were caged? Where were they? Is this another planet? Where did the men go? How did the power continuously stay running? This book brought up a lot of emotion. I really enjoyed it could not put it down.