I heard so many good things about this book but really struggled with it

An astonishing story and one that I could not put down. I felt I wandered along with the narrator simultaneously experiencing her emotions. Truly remarkable. The perspective is so unique.

Felt like a book I just had to read for my own literary journey. It had an eerie undertone that kept me hooked and took me through waves of emotions thanks to the author’s remarkable ability to create vivid descriptions. Seems perfect for a Book Club because you’ll need someone to debrief with after you’re done!

I loved that it made me think about what really matters in life and the way it made me feel but I didn’t like how the book ended or the fact it didn’t have any chapters.

If you like a book that ends with answers, this book is not for you.

I love sci fi so this was right up my alley. I originally read this for a book club and I'm so happy I did! Very interesting and intriguing. I love that my mind was able to wander and wander along with the main character. Great read !

Utterly unlike anything I’ve ever read. Just as hopeful as it was bleak and gray. There are no chapters, which made it hard to find places to stop. Like the narrator, it felt like what was going to happen next or what might lie around the next corner of the story was always a step ahead of you, the reader, as you travel her story. Powerful sci-fi that never had any answers, and yet, you’ll keep searching.

I was not prepared at all for the direction this book went in. There is a lot to be said about humanity and the philosophy of human purpose from this text—an intriguing and unsettling read.

acqueline Harpman’s now 30-year-old “I Who Have Never Known Men,” is a genre-bending masterpiece of a novel. It reads like a horror story rooted in patriarchal megalomania with a sci-fi backdrop. A quarter of the way in, you will not be able to put it down. It is profoundly imaginative and fluid in plot, dialogue, and pace. It reminds me of Plato’s allegory of the cave along with contemporary dystopian stories like “Silo” and “Severance.” Which all makes sense because the questions that Harpman raises in this book are deeply philosophical and universal. The questions are made even more compelling by framing them from the perspective of a protagonist with a uniquely nascent worldview. The unnamed protagonist’s experiences ask us to grapple with concepts like how to frame a concept like freedom when we are so bizarrely constrained? We are made to look unflinchingly at a clinical-level of dehumanization that is not without historical precedence. A fact that the author’s Jewish heritage points to. Building on top of that, we look at the broader list of characters and grapple with how one finds purpose, community, and belonging when you are turned into a grotesque museum exhibit? What is life without the social constructs, mores, interactions, and arts? For me, Harpman suggests that there is an innate inner spark that can be nurtured into a drive to exist. A position which reminds me of Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” In that, deconstructing existence to a simple kernel of the self could be a pathway to knowing your world. Even if only as far as the empirical evidence in front of you allows. All this contemplation gets blown open by a miraculous event that opens up the world within the novel and introduces new forms of pain, isolation, and existential crisis. The second half felt like some new realm of Dante’s Inferno. It is shocking to me that this paradigm-shifting sci-fi and horror combination of a book has not occupied the cultural zeitgeist more. It is spell-blindingly gripping and challenges everything you know about what it means to be human. A must-read and a new favorite of mine.

Paid ten bucks and only received sample and afterword. There is no mechanism to force the books app to give me the entire book. Sorry to report this in a review but I see no other way to warn people that they may want to buy this book elsewhere.