Gripping story and excellently delivered. I was glad I listened to this rather than reading it as audiobooks in my opinion can make you feel much more inside the story (not always of course, and reading can absolutely do that too!) but in this case I felt that the narrators did a fabulous job and with there being several voices in the story it was important to have distinct narration. It also kept me company during an epic freezer de-icing session and house clean!

This is pandemic fiction which reads like a collective memoir. The premise is that an unknown illness is striking people down fast, starting in Scotland in 2024, and then quickly spreading to the rest of the UK, then the world. It seems to kill 90% of its victims... all of whom are male.
Society is rocked, women are in the driving seat and it's up to the women and a few immune men to find out where this virus came from, find a cure, keep the world turning, document the events for posterity and ultimately save humanity.

I didn't want to give myself any spoilers by researching this while I was listening to it, but afterwards I found out that it was published just this year but was written pre-covid-19. There are however many things that feel familiar about the pandemic experience pictured in the novel.
The different perspectives in the book range from the doctors of so-called Patient Zero, the first to contract what becomes known as The Plague, the scientists working on a vaccine, researchers trying to uncover the cause, the women who lose their loved ones and get called to action, people quarantined at sea, and many others.

The End of Men is an addictive read, but if you’re looking for escapism from the current pandemic reality I’d say it might feel a bit too close to home at the moment. It really helped me to reflect on our current pandemic though and appreciate the work being done to get us through it. I would highly recommend this read!

PS: The End of Men has been nominated as Best Science Fiction in the Goodreads choice awards, so go and cast your vote!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers Borough Press for allowing me to access an advance copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion.

Really enjoyed this novel: well written, humorous and prescient, bearing in mind it was written pre COVID. All of humanity was here and a bit of social commentary too as a pandemic that only kills men sweeps the globe. Only slight criticism, there are a lot of characters’ points of view to keep track of but this does manage to give a broad sweep of people and places too. Thought-provoking about the social norms women accept most of the time too.

The narration is perfect and suspense building. Overall the audiobook is a great effect to normal text and I highly recommend it

I enjoyed this feminist dystopia, very fitting for the current time in which it was written. A nice easy read to help you escape the real world for a little while!

I've given 4 stars. Thought it was a good book. But really did feel that it dragged on at the end.
The story itself though was brill. Really felt I was living the story. Well written!

This was an excellent read, however do your research as I know many people will find this triggering due to the topic.

This book centers around, what we now unfortunately know, to be a very accurate depiction of a pandemic. Although written before 2020 the similarities are startling, However in this read it is only men who are affected. I really enjoyed the different perspectives and snippets of personalities, it gave us a well rounded view of the whole pandemic, from the doctor who first discovered it, the CDC, the women searching for a cure, mothers and wives.

I personally really enjoyed this read, all the characters were perfectly voiced and it was very easy to flip between the character. It was a brilliantly crafted multiple point of view audio book.

“In the process of compiling the stories, I have asked myself about the recording of history. For the first time in the history of the world, women are fully in control of the way our stories are told.” - Catherine Lawrence, Anthropologist, September 2032.

My thanks to HarperCollins U.K. Audio for a review copy via NetGalley of the unabridged audiobook of ‘The End of Men’ by Christina Sweeney-Baird in exchange for an honest review. It is narrated by a full cast with a running time of 12 hours, 03 minutes at 1x speed.

Glasgow, 2025 and Dr Amanda Maclean is working in A&E and is called to treat a young man with flu-like symptoms. Within three hours he is dead. The mysterious illness sweeps through the hospital with deadly speed. This is only the beginning. All the victims are men.

It isn’t long until the disease has spread to all corners of the globe and with a high mortality rate the race is on to find a cure and/or an effective vaccine. Can the human race survive with so few men left alive?

This was an interesting book to read and listen to during a global pandemic. In places quite a harrowing read though the high mortality rate is thankfully not reflected in our real life pandemic. Yet it is a cautionary tale.

This is Christina Sweeney-Baird’s debut novel. In her Author’s Note she advises that she wrote it from September 2018 and completed in June, 2019, some months before news of the real life pandemic occurred. She writes of the surreal situation that she found herself in during its editing: “testing my imaginary world against the real one. I gauge the distance between what I have written and what is happening. As a writer of speculative fiction, this is not something I ever expected.”

‘The End of Men’ is presented as “Stories of the Great Male Plague’ compiled by Catherine Lawrence. So there is a number of points of view, including doctors, academics, government officials, survivors, and the grieving as well as reports and articles. This gives it the feel of a work of nonfiction.

In terms of the audiobook, having a number of narrators reading the various sections worked well for the style of this novel, again emphasising the sense of it being a historical account rather than a work of speculative fiction.

I felt that Christina Sweeney-Baird approached her topic with sensitivity, stressing the loss experienced by so many and the ripple effect upon the world caused by such a catastrophic disease.

Christina Sweeney-Baird will be an author to watch.

Astounding.
I am staggered that this book was written in 2018 and 2019, and the further I read, the more I am amazed at the parallels between the book and the Covid 19 pandemic that ensued in 2020. This has feels of Lockdown by Peter May in that respect, and yet this book tackles a different angle, that of wiping out an entire gender- hence, the title The End of Men.
This has deep undertones though, of how the strength of the human spirit enables us to live in extraordinary times and through immeasurable trauma and grief. I lost my eldest sister in April 2020 (not Covid related) and this has helped to remind me of the strength we have, and to call on it when we need to.
The narrators for the audiobook were all fantastic and played their roles perfectly. Clearly defined and totally engaging.

I got about a third of the way through this and then gave up. It was well written and thought-provoking and each narrator performed well, for some reason I just wasn't gripped or invested enough in the characters and with so many other things on my TBR pile, I moved on.

This will be a bit of a long review, but I think this book deserves a long and detailed review (spoiler free)

Well, I just finished listening to The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird… And I have to immediately say this is an amazing debut novel!

If you’re going to read about a deadly virus, a plague, a pandemic, and actually feel it is relatable and not “just pure fiction”, the time is definitely now.

A mystery illness starts off in Scotland, or, I should add, “The Independent Republic of Scotland”, in the year 2025 (scarily not too far from now).

This illness is only affecting and killing men. All men, no matter their age. And quite quickly it begins to spread worldwide, killing around 90% of the world’s male population, from newborn babies to elderly men… The world is now filled with widows, childless mothers and so much devastating grief and loss.

Does this seem a bit far-fetched to have a virus that is only affecting and killing men? No, not at all. Maybe not on this scale, but medicine does prove that there are certain illnesses or conditions that women may be carriers of but that will only affect men. This book simply took it to an extreme level and the scientific explanations given in the story as to why and how this was possible and was happening was extremely well researched and very plausible.

This starts off in 2025 and it takes us through a journey of just little over 4 years from the start of it, showing us all different types of people (differences in social status, location, ethnicity, age…) but also takes us through the excruciatingly painful process to find out why it happened, where it came from, how to cure it or treat, why some men are immune, what will become of the world after this massive “wipe-out” of men worldwide… and also the political aspects, the financial aspects, the lengths to which some people will go to in order to save themselves or to, worse, profit from this horrible pandemic.


I’m glad the audiobook features a full cast of different narrators, because we get to a point where we’re being told too many stories almost at the same time, and it helped to differentiate them all (and I also had to take some notes to not forget who was who and what where they doing and what their role in the main storyline was…).

I do not want to go into specific details, so I won’t spoil the book for anyone, but I have to say… I felt it was extremely relatable because a lot of what was written in this book… has happened during the covid-19 pandemic, though for us in the real world, this is still far from over… And to know that this book was written BEFORE coronavirus was even a reality is… scary. In so many ways it was almost a foreshadowing of what was coming, though, obviously, the author did not write it with that intention.

This book was realistic, terrifying (and a bit graphic at times, so be aware of that), filled with loss and heartbreak in so many occasions, well thought out and just a phenomenal read.

But you also need to keep in mind that this story is that of a somewhat ‘resolved’ pandemic, as it takes course over several years, so I suppose we can say that, in our real lives, we’re somewhere in the middle of this scenario.

I have to sing my praises to the author because this truly is masterpiece debut novel.


PS: I need to add a little side note, hopefully not a spoiler, but there was just a short moment in the book where I actually laughed out loud, which is the scene with the male member of parliament who is immune and someone says “it’s as if the virus took one look at him and said ‘no way in hell am I getting near that’”. I’m sorry, but it was just hilarious, because I sometimes also have similar thoughts about some people who are just a complete cancer in society but it seems they’re always immune to the worst things in life…


Thank you kindly to NetGalley, HarperCollins UK Audio and, of course, the author Christina Sweeney-Baird, for allowing me to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

#TheEndofMen #NetGalley

What a gripping audiobook! Particularly having listened during the Covid-19 pandemic. The narrators were great as was the storyline. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stomach the story given today’s restrictions and fears for the future but it did illustrate how strong we humans are and our ability to adapt and overcome the unthinkable. My thanks to Netgalley, publisher and author for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was an interesting read, it was a really solid idea for a dystopian novel and definitely certain parts hit close to home because of the current pandemic situation. I really enjoyed the different perspectives we got, that is something I really like in books and felt it was done very well in this one. I also liked how as we got further into the book the plotlines crossed paths. I didn't totally get the science of it, but it sounded legit enough for me to just accept it and move on.

- The audio narration was a really good cast - I definitely liked how it helped change the points of view and you knew upon hearing a voice which character it was. Excellent job.

The End of Men starts in Glasgow, 2025 with an outbreak of the flu. At least that's Dr Amanda Maclean's initial diagnosis until symptoms escalate at an unprecedented speed. Everyone who comes into contact with this virus becomes a host. Every host who falls ill, dies in a matter of days. However the only hosts that fall ill, are men. Told through a collection of first hand accounts and newspaper articles, The End of Men follows the pandemic from the initial outbreak to the global response to the aftermath. It is a gripping story of survival made all the more eerie by its parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic. You see the reason why this is the first 'pandemic' novel is because Sweeney-Baird began writing in 2018, nearly two years prior to the initial COVID-19 outbreak.

Given the mental strain that living through 2020 has had on us all, I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish The End of Men. Back when we still able to work from our Central London office the premise sounded like my kind of thriller but as downloaded it last week I wondered if it would feel far too soon. My fears were unfounded. Sweeney-Baird's writing is quite frankly addictive. I did not want to stop listening. The story opens with Dr Amanda Maclean whose shift in the Emergency Room of her hospital goes from typical working day to the defining moment in her life in a matter of minutes. We listen in a horrified trance as she realises she has a pandemic on her hands and tirelessly attempts to get someone, anyone to believe her. Dr Amanda is one of a handful of recurring perspectives we hear across the novel interspersed with individual stories and newspaper articles. We also follow the stories of Catherine, an anthropologist desperately trying to keep her husband and young son safe, Dawn whose retirement from MI5 is postponed due to a the national emergency, Lisa and Elizabeth both working on a vaccine from other sides of the world, Toby whose evaded the virus due to being stranded at sea and Maria the first journalist to report on the virus outside of Scotland.

The varying perspectives highlight the spectrum of responses to a world-wide tragedy. There are those that rise to the occasion, doing their all to help. There are those that benefit from the misfortune of others. There are those in denial and those desperate to survive. It also illustrates the massive gap between the haves and have nots. The rich flee, the poor have to wait it out. Reflecting .our current reality and the growing advantage those with privilege have. The variety also allows us to focus on the humanity rather than the virus. Every single person is impacted. Every single person knows someone who has died. Time and time again we desperately we hope that this character, this son, this father, this husband will survive. We hold out hope with their loved ones and we share in their grief.

That’s not to say that there is no hope in this story, it just comes from an unexpected place. Going into The End of Men I had assumed there would an instant gratification ending, that neatly wraps up the entire story. That a vaccine would be found, that everyone would be cured and the world would enter into the utopia of a female majority. What Sweeney-Baird actually provides us is a much more realistic conclusion. The hope is found in our ability to adapt, the hope is found in those who approach issues with a new perspective. Most importantly the hope is found in the connections we form at times of crisis and undeniably strength of compassion and love.

For me what drives this message of hope and my inability to stop listening were the characters. They are not good, or evil, they are human. At times they are generous at others they are selfish. At times we loathe them at others we love them. This is elevated by the spectacular casting and narration. Each narrator connects with the core motivations of their character, allowing you to adore those you agree with and empathise with those you don’t. The three standouts for me were Amanda, Dawn and Elizabeth. Both Amanda and Dawn bring some much needed tension relief with their blunt ways of communicating and their narrators corresponding delivery. I still have the sentence “I hope Karen is a fucking murderer” residing in my head in a glaswegian accent. Elizabeth on the other hand is pure warmth and optimism. Her southern drawl coupled with her instinct to help becomes a beacon shining at even the darkest points of the story.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten through an audiobook of this length so quickly and wait in anticipation for what Sweeney-Baird will write next.

I listened to the audiobook which has a full cast recording, each narrator brilliant in their own right. From the opening page, I was hooked. My favourite character was Helen. Her scenes with errant husband Sean which occur later in the book are hilarious and so relatable. As a Scot, I loved the sections of the book set here and the notion of an Independent Republic of Scotland. Of course I loved Amanda too and felt her frustration seeping from the pages. Christina Sweeney-Baird has produced something really special. A book about a pandemic, that you can read whilst living through a pandemic without feeling alarmed. I thought the premise was excellent and enjoyed contemplating some of the questions and issues raised. Hat tip to audiobook narrators Rebecca Perfect; William Hope; Penelope Rawlins; Debra Michaels; Julia Locascio; Sasha Alexis; Robert Bradley; Sara Lynam; Aysha Kala; Cathleen McCarron; DeNica Fairman all of whom did an excellent job of bringing the story to life. "The End of Men" would make a brilliant book club choice due to the scope for extensive discussion. I would read it again.

** ARC provided by Netgalley via the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ***

What a great book, I was gripped from the beginning! I can't say I've ever felt grateful about the pandemic we're currently living through but this certainly helped me get some perspective on how much worse things could be. The narrators were all great and easy to listen to and I've already started recommending this book to people.

Totally gripping from the outset. There is very little not to like about this book. Told from various perspectives of the characters. A virus is sweeping through the global population. It has a near 100% mortality rate. Women are the asymptomatic carriers helplessly wiping out their husbands, fathers, brothers & sons.

The race is on to find answers and a solution before the end of men and the end of us.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this before it's official publication date.

This is an extremely thought-provoking and competently handled novel for a debut author to write and I can’t decide whether this is the perfect time or the worst time to read it.

Dr Amanda McClean, a busy A & E doctor is called to a patient whose organs are rapidly shutting down. Unable to save him, she begins to see a pattern of cases emerge and reports the outbreak of a suspected disease outbreak. What follows is the rapid spread of a devastating pandemic, told from multiple viewpoints over the course of the next years.

I listened to the audiobook version of the novel and thankfully each character was voiced by a different actor or the narrative would have been impossible to follow. Even with this in place, there are so many characters that sometimes I forgot who someone was. Overall, I think the actors did a great job although it was unintentionally funny hearing someone doing some very bad Scottish accents when voicing, I think, Catherine?, interviewing Amanda and Ewan’s widow.

Although I understand the author’s desire to cover as many socio/political/ethical angles and character perspectives as possible, I did feel that the last third of the book was slowed down by it.

There are lots of dilemmas posed by a scenario where the whole world is affected by the loss of men, whether emotionally or practically. Whole male-centric industries are decimated and solutions have to be found; population recovery needs to be managed; the socioeconomic landscape is permanently changed. Overall this is handled extremely well but it is such a huge ask that at times I did think that it would have been better to have fewer voices and that we could spend more time with them.

This would be an excellent book group choice (if we ever get to have those again) as there is much to discuss and it really is a remarkably accomplished debut.

With thanks to NetGalley and the Harper Collins UK audio for an arc audiobook of this novel in return for an honest review.

The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird was absolutely wow! A virus that takes over the world feels a little bit close to home but this is absolutely gripping. Had already heard amazing things and can understand why. I was absolutely hooked and devoured this audiobook. There were quite a lot of narrators to get my head around and it take a bit of time for me to get used to this, but they were great.

What a fantastic idea for a book! A deadly pandemic sweeping the world but the only fatalities are men! To read this at a time when a pandemic is sweeping the world can at times be mentally and emotionally challenging and this is not what one would call an escapist read. However, this book is well done with many different narratives and few points. Very thought provoking and I am thrilled to have read it.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an audio arc of this book, all opinions expressed here are my own.

The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird is the author’s debut novel. It is extremely well written, with relatable character but it’s about a global pandemic.

I wondered about the wisdom of this, until I found the author drafted this book in 2018, before Covid-19 even happened! So while some may find this hard to read given the current situation in our world, it was an interesting read and worth giving a chance.

Told from multiple character’s viewpoints, some for just once chapter, others through the whole story. The End of Men brings to light a pandemic of global proportions, that kills males within a few days of contracting the virus. With an almost 100% mortality rate, no cure and women also as asymptomatic hosts, it becomes a race to find a vaccine before it’s too late to save the world.

Just think about how many jobs are predominately male - police, army, doctors, pilots, even garbage truck drivers. The list goes on. What would happen if they were all suddenly gone?

My favourite characters were Amanda, the doctor who realised she treated Patient Zero and tried to alert the authorities, but was dismissed as being a hysterical female. And Elizabeth, a young American who insists on putting her knowledge to the test in England, helping develop a vaccine.

My least favourite character was Lisa, a stuck up Canadian doctor on another team developing the vaccine.

The use of multiple (mostly female) narrators was an excellent choice for this book. It meant we could seamlessly tell the difference between characters due to Scottish, English, American etc accents. It was a very enjoyable listen.

Told during and after the pandemic hits this is a fascinating 4 star read. I look forward to reading more books by this author in the future.

This book was amazing and I am so delighted to have been granted access to the audiobook after having been turned down fir the digital review copy. I honestly think I got the better end of the deal. The audiobook was AMAZING. told through different actors/ readers voices, with varying international accents, this genuinely felt like a global perspective on the pandemic.

#NotTheCOVID19Pandemic
To be living through a pandemic and read a book about one would seem unwise, but the absolute honest approach to this Fictional pandemic did not trigger all the usual feelings of despair and drowning in news and information that currently surround us.

Because “The Plague” is carried by women, but only affects/kills men the after-effects on the global population is quite dramatic, which leads to changes in society, how relationships are viewed, and how women regain lost opportunities.
This was compelling, realistic and I absolutely loved it.
Many thanks again to #NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook ahead of publication in exchange for an honest review
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 6/5 starts.