Femlandia

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There was a lot of conflict, bad decisions and Miranda getting into trouble or being put in isolation that you struggled to empathise with Emma at all and as a reader you never felt taken in by the place. And so they set off to Femlandia, the women-only colony Miranda’s mother, Win Somers, established decades ago. As the story progresses and we arrive in Femlandia, a sanctuary for women away from the harshness of what is happening to the rest of the world and away from all men. The ending was also weird and I found it odd that someone who worked with animals in a zoo would mis-identify a noise which should be easily identifiable (no spoilers!

Alongside this anti-feminist take, the novel is engaged in another, more subtle kind of moral or political argument, one that’s ultimately just as repugnant: a bizarre kind of passionate centrism welded to a grievance-powered feeling of Boomer-flavored righteousness. Furthermore, it’s plagued by too many reality-breaking plot and character problems to list here, from Miranda solving a decades-old murder on the logic that “no one drafts a suicide note” (and, apparently, a compulsion to do the pencil-rubbing trick on any pads of paper she finds laying around) to an unintentionally comic gun-juggling finale.Better books about all-female communities, ranging from science fiction to dystopian to historical, include: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith; The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall; Matrix by Lauren Groff; In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden; Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant. Yet what they find when they get there is so much worse than Miranda ever could have imagined and it turns even her own daughter against her. cut off from the rest of the world, they have been thriving on their own for years, so this little societal collapse is just another day in the life for them. and my personal favourite "We know the date - Black Wednesday, April 1st, the year of our Lord two thousand and something. I did not like all the misandry which I felt was a bit extreme and left me wondering if there is such a thing as being too feminist.

I will say however just how frustrated I am that I know full well that this book will be targeted and promoted primarily toward young female feminists, who will see slogans like "JOIN THE SISTERHOOD" on the bright pink cover, or see the comparisons drawn to Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and think that this is more of the same. I do love a chilling dystopian story and have previously enjoyed Christina Dalcher’s Q so I was excited to start Femlandia.Overall I loved the premise of the book but I found it didn't quite deliver in the same way as the previous two novels. This one time that the topic is raised is over in two paragraphs, and it ends unrivalled and unchallenged with; "They can identify as a fucking hedgehog for all I care. There was a bit of transphobia which I get was to make you not like a character but I was not comfortable reading it. Miranda and Emma should urgently find a place to stay if they don’t want to starve to death or get killed in the middle of the street.