Reviews with content warning for Murder - Femlandia

The first few chapters tell you the same thing, several times, in essentially the same way (post apocalyptic ish, I hate mummy, my husband was a bit shit). The saving grace being that chapters are very short. I spent most of the book not sure that I liked it, but wanted to know if it could get better. I'm still not sure.

It rang very "not all men", which I just feel is not a point that needs to be made. There's also brief transphobia toward the beginning which was very icky. The protagonist is written as though she doesn't necessarily agree, but doesn't fight the point. It left me wondering about the authors personal views.

I also feel like it completely avoided a whole topic that felt too obvious to me to be ignored, that socialising all new humans in a healthy way would probably make the world a much better place. Instead it's one extreme or the other: either men abuse women, or women abuse men. I get it's a dystopia but the idea wasn't floated until the epilogue

which makes it out that its undeniable human nature that men will take over, they'll always do the heavy lifting, and have the big brains for the important decisions. There is no argument for nurture, DESPITE the repeated story about the bloody gorilla learning sign?!

I think I partially guessed the key twist so was reading more to see if I got it right, than actually enjoying it. I guess it's kind of an interesting take on a female led dystopia, but I won't be recommending it to anyone in a hurry.

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rhi_reading's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

A clunky, heavy-handed novel that spends every single page beating you around the head with a large ‘Feminism is evil’ stick. I gave it some grace at the beginning because I thought maybe it was designed to be a satire of the way some people view feminists, that trad-wife Miranda and her misandrist mother would meet in the middle and see each others views. I realised I was very wrong by about 1/3 of the way in, but by that point reading this book had turned in to the literary equivalent of rubbernecking at a ten-car pileup - you know it’s terrible, but you need to see HOW truly awful it is.

It’s certainly fast-paced, but this pace is achieved by cutting out almost all character development and relationship dynamics. Every choice made by the characters seem completely random. Why does Emma latch on to Jen Jones (the charasmatic leader of this seeming idyllic off-The-grid community, with a name so subtle she may as well just have been called Dr Evil) as soon as she meets her, to the point where she abandons her own mother? Jen has done nothing to earn this, there’s absolutely nothing to suggest Emma supported the extreme ideals of Femlandia before all this.

The ‘twist’ of the book was gross and not even especially clever, but don’t worry because it’s all resolved in pretty much the next chapter.

There are some absolutely sublime 1* review for this book on StoryGraph that go in to more detail about why exactly this book is so awful, Id suggest reading them over reading Femlandia - you’ll certainly experience more nuance, structure, and entertainment. My search for a great feminist dystopian story continues.

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sb27's review

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challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Really quite violent in places. So was worried about the book at the beginning, but I came to enjoy it. If you can call it that.
A interesting take on the future, but hope at the end

Content Warnings