Bleak. Engaging. Thought provoking. Sad.

This was recommended as something like if you enjoy Silo (the Wool trilogy - which I own, but hadn't read - but have watched the TV series). I'm going to say this up front: it's only like Silo in respect to being in a deep hole and not really knowing why.

The story is written first hand from our unnamed protagonist as her last mark in the world. A world, which she's the last person left. Initially I found the style off putting, because it's a non-stop run of sentences. No chapters. No breaks. Just stream of consciousness. However, as I got to know the character, it felt natural and sort of ended up working.

The title also did accidentally draw me into the assumption that not knowing men is core to the story, but really it's not. I certainly comes up, but it's not the core tenant.

It's one of the last quotes in the books that stood out to me the most:

Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others

There's a lot of what is it like to exist alone, whilst also giving the main character a reason to think this way - she's different from the other women she grew up with because unlike the others, she doesn't remember the world before they were caged.

Overall, it's pretty bleak. It's not so bleak that it could happen in our reality (whereas I could see how The Handmaid's Tale could), and the aloneness really does punch through.

I don't do half stars, but this does sit between three and four.

A solid dystopian read.

6 Highlights

#1/6 - Location 170

What are we, without a future, without children? The last links in a broken chain.’

#2/6 - Location 443

want to know everything there is to know. Not because it’s any use, but purely for the pleasure of knowing

#3/6 - Location 533

Death is sometimes so discreet that it steals in noiselessly, stays for only a moment and carries off its prey,

#4/6 - Location 565

‘Yes, of course,’ I said.
That satisfied her. We were in agreement, without being too sure over what. Or perhaps over the fact that we had nothing in common. And so we sat in silence.

#5/6 - Location 641

I stood looking around me for a long time, allowing my wild curiosity to satisfy itself at its own pace. I already knew that it would remain frustrated –

#6/6 - Location 757

Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others,