Summary: The nameless narrator of I Who Have Never Known Men doesn't remember life outside the cage. Ever since she was young, she's lived in a cage with thirty-nine other women, constantly watched by guards who don't speak. The other women occasionally reminisce about their lives before the cage, but the girl has no such memories to speak of. None of them are sure why they're in a cage, or exactly how long they've been there, or why there was one young girl included with the grown women. Life goes on in these conditions as best it can, never varying, until one day a chance occurrance lets the women escape. But the world they knew is gone, and the task of making their way in this new world falls to the youngest among them, the girl who has never known anything else. Review: I Who Have Never Known Men is this bizarre little introspective book, a relatively straightforward dystopian sci-fi novel that nevertheless reads more like an extended philosophical musing, a book that is quiet and haunting and heartbreaking and frustrating and thought-provoking, all at the same time. The entire novel asks what it really means to be human; where that humanity comes from, and whether it can survive under the most dehumanizing conditions, or in the complete absence of other people. I don't know that the novel ever comes to any firm conclusions on those points, but it does provide a lot of food for thought (especially given its length), and I can see this book working wonderfully well as a discussion starter for a book club or high school lit class. This book didn't just leave its philosophical questions unanswered; it also never clarified a lot of its plot points. The plot sticks entirely to the narrator's viewpoint, and the readers aren't given any additional information; we never find out why the women were in the cage, or what happened in the past, or even where they are. This is the sort of thing that typically frustrates the hell out of me, but in this case, I found it less annoying than one might think. Perhaps because all of those worldbuilding-type points are peripheral to the point of the novel; it matters less why she's there than what she's going to do about it. Overall, while I didn't find it a completely satisfying novel, it packs a lot of narrative heft for such a slim book, and it's definitely the type of book that I'm still going to be thinking about for a long time after I've turned the last page. 4 out of 5 stars. Recommendation: I'm having a hard time categorizing this book into a genre, let alone coming up with read-alikes to suggest. Ursula K. LeGuin, maybe? But I don't think this book is only for sci-fi fans; although the basic premise is technically sci-fi, I think the story and the narrative voice will appeal to a much broader range of readers. (read less)

Summary: The nameless narrator of I Who Have Never Known Men doesn't remember life outside the cage. Ever since she was young, she's lived in a cage with thirty-nine other women, constantly watched by guards who don't speak. The other women occasionally reminisce about their lives before the cage, but the girl has no such memories to speak of. None of them are sure why they're in a cage, (read more)

Best for: Those who enjoy more philosophical works of fiction. Those who don’t need every question answered. ** Spoilers Below ** In a nutshell: Our unnamed narrator is a teen girl who finds herself locked in a windowless jail with 39 women. She recalls nothing of her life before arriving here, and this book follows her life. Worth quoting: “They’d wanted something all their lives, but now they had it, they didn’t recognise it.” “What does having lived mean once you are no longer alive?” Why I chose it: This book, though original written in the 1990s, has been everywhere I look in the UK, so I finally decided to read it. Review: As I said above - spoilers. Because I want to talk about all parts of this book. First off, we never find out the why of anything in this novel, and that is such strong choice. Much like some of my other favorite books where something unexpected and fairly inexplicable sets off the entire story, we never learn why the women (and the hundreds of others the discover over the years) were kept captive. We don’t know where they are, if they are even still on Earth. We don’t know what the incident was that led to their capture. And we don’t know how the hell the lights are still on after 40 some years… The book is broken into three parts. The first is when this group of 40 women are living in the cage. The narrator talks about their daily life, and about how they have literally nothing they can do. They are watched by three male guards at a time, who do not speak to them. They are provided basic clothing, very basic food and cooking supplies, and bedding. They do not have privacy ever, including when using the toilet. This goes on for years, with no knowledge of why. So much of this section got me thinking about how one would survive when there is no understanding of why one is even there, and no contact with others. The cruelty of just keeping someone in a cage. It got me thinking about people put in detention in the US for ‘immigration violations’ - just stuck in a limbo where they have no idea where they might be kept, what will happen next. No way to fight back. The second part comes when the women accidentally gain their freedom. A siren sounds and the guards bolt, and they just so happen to have been in the process of opening the cage for another reason, and they leave the keys. So the second part focuses on the women gaining their freedom, but realizing almost immediately that they are both all alone and that no one is coming back to either save or harm them. They organise themselves and realise that their basic needs will be met, as there is plenty of food to last literal years. But of course they explore, and eventually come across another cage. And another. And no guards. And no survivors, because no one else has the serendipity of the timing of the siren and access to keys. The third part looks at life once the narrator is the sole remaining survivor. As she was youngest by a lot, over the decades the others die, eventually leaving her completely alone to wander until she, too, dies. Author Harpman does an incredible job of telling all of this from the perspective of someone who has no frame of reference to ‘before times.’ She can’t read, she doesn’t know math, but more importantly, she doesn’t know human connection. She recoils from physical touch and don’t quite understand why people would be asking questions about things (in the beginning). Once she becomes closer to the rest of the women, the narrator starts to recognise the value of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. She is always wanting to explore further, walk faster. She wants to learn about the world before she knew it, but also learn practical things. Once the last of her fellow prisoners dies, she’s excited to be alone, to have the full freedom she’s craved her whole life. And this all creates the space to ask the questions related to what it is to be alive, and what is humanity. Obviously humanity is cruelty, given the cages these women (and later, men, we discover) are kept in, and the fact that someone, or some people, created a world with nothing but these cages in bunkers underground. But humanity is also community, and having a purpose, even if that purpose is to find a way to pass the time before death arrives. Is this a bleak story? Sort of? But it’s also a beautiful story about how people adjust to the life they have, and try to make the best out of it. (read less)

Best for: Those who enjoy more philosophical works of fiction. Those who don’t need every question answered. ** Spoilers Below ** In a nutshell: Our unnamed narrator is a teen girl who finds herself locked in a windowless jail with 39 women. She recalls nothing of her life before arriving here, and this book follows her life. Worth quoting: “They’d wanted something all their lives, but (read more)