The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

2.5 stars
Underwhelming. I've read a lot of post apocalyptic novels I liked far better than this.
And for a book called "The Book Of The Unnamed Midwife" there is practically no midwifery involved.

This book took me completely by surprise and was honestly so hard to put down. The writing style, alternating between diary entries and neutral narration added such an immersive element to an already super harrowing plot. Earlier this year I read Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich and Red Clocks by Leni Zumas, and knowing that this book came out in 2014, it's interesting to see how it certainly laid the foundation for dystopian books focused on reproduction. Definitely not the happiest book I've read, probably not the best time in our political climate to read about messed up stuff happening to women & families, but this book was amazing nonetheless.

I don't know how to approach this. I don't enjoy post-apocalyptic novels. This one features a virus that kills most of humanity, but is just a bit more lethal for females than males. This causes various forms of sexual tension, a lot of forced breeding, and just bad times.

As much as I want to say something like that wouldn't happen, I think I might be lying to myself.

I wonder if an appropriate comparison would water in Water World to human females in The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. Or some other scarce resource? In any case, the writer does understand resource scarcity, and what can happen in such a situation, and presents it in disturbing ways. (And yet, the inner economist in me is happy that someone got it right, even if I am appalled by the results).

I found the ending reasonable. I'm not sure if I'll continue the series, but that's less a comment on the book or the series, and my general reluctance to read series of books, especially when they're not all published. But the ending is good enough that I don't feel that I am required to keep reading.

Women's Apocalypse

I didn't really know what to expect when I picked this up - I initially was sorta reserved as the cover lended itself to the bog standard thriller category of which I have no interest in, but it popped up in the sci-fi category elsewhere.... and...

I'm really glad I got over that reservation! This is a really tight, phenomenal and dark book. The post-apocalyptic genre has become saturate with some tiresome stuff, but this goes beyond. There's no impossible heroics, but the behaviour of those left behind is both galling and fascinating.