In this dystopian fiction under female rule, men are sent to institutions to be trained to be indifferent to female physical appearance and focus on inner qualities.

From reading the blurb I had Handmaids Tale vibes and was really looking forward to this book. However I felt that whilst the concept was original, and intriguing the execution was poor and lacked style and warmth in the writing.

Written in first person from the perspective of a female guard, the tone was unapologetically cold and brutal. I understand that it was necessary to depict the character in this way, but I’m not being able to endear myself to the principal character it made for a more difficult read.

This coupled with the brutality, and overly detailed methods of training (I’m not particularly prudish but it was a little too much for me!) made me squirm without anything to look particularly forward to in the book.

I think if the author had added a little more satire, or a little more humanity into the book it would have packed a bigger punch.

Thank you @netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Overall, it’s disappointing, but I can’t give this more than a 2🐾 and that’s for the concept not for the execution.

I can see why people don't like this book. It is more of an idea than a story and the execution is provocative on purpose. The dystopian world is only superficially executed and the focus lies on only a small, but significant part of it. It definitely would have been interesting to see more of this world, than only that narrow part of it, but this is just not what this book is about and in my opinion not the reason for and the goal of this story.
What made me liking this book is, that it challenges the reader on a moral level and that it confronts you with harsh situations to make you feel uncomfortable. It asks questions to make you reflect on them.

It reads like a run-on sentence that will never end. I imagine something must have been lost in translation since the blurb makes it sound so interesting, but there's just no way I can get through this. I can either hate read until the bitter end or DNF. I choose sanity. I choose DNF.

Petra Hůlová's THREE PLASTIC ROOMS was startling, grotesque, and revelatory--and it made me eager to read THE MOVEMENT. I didn't have the same visceral reaction to this novel. It didn't hit me in the gut the way THREE PLASTIC ROOMS did. It felt far more intellectual and I could hold it at arm's length and not be moved by it as I read. I think THREE PLASTIC ROOMS is one of the bravest books I've ever read, and however extreme the images and events were I never stopped feeling the protagonist's humanity. I just didn't connect the same way here. Three stars though for the absolute smartness of the author's vision.

I had high hopes for this one as the concept sounded interesting. The Movement presents a society in which physical attributes are ignored, especially for women, and pushes for inner qualities to be considered the only things that matter. As such, men are forbidden to be attracted to women based upon their appearance. There is an institute, The Movement, that takes in any man that struggles to meet these requirements, at which they are reconditioned.

It seemed similar to other dystopian novels that have been released in recent years that centre around the promotion of women to an extreme within society. I can't deny, that is what this book did. However, the writing style is very heavy/dense and the point is almost lost within the narrative; potentially this is one that didn't translate well.

I couldn't get past the start of this one but I did appreciate the author's introduction and comments of her own child's observations of sexualisation of the world around her. I liked the ideas of this book, but not the execution.

This book wasn't for me- I was expecting somewhat of a cross between Handmaid's Tale and Vox, but this felt odd. I find it really graphic/pornographic at points, and I struggle reading books like that.

I did not enjoy this book at all. The description given was intriguing but I felt that the book itself failed to reach the expectations I had. This was a great subject and I felt that I was reading the second boook in the series as there was so much unanswered. I would have preferred a chronological story beginning with Rita, her home life, her growing up and how she came to start The Movement. At times I felt that this could be considered a satirical read and at other times it bordered on pornography.It was a very confusing read.
The concept of how women should be perceived and treated by men is a solid one and some of the treatments could be considered as valid but others were so dictatorial that I could not see it woould achieve its aim.

It was the cover of the book which first attracted my attention, then I read the blurb and wanted to read it straightaway.

The blurb immediately made me think of Margaret Attwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, but a reversal of the situation with women being in charge. Men being the one’s treat as the lower class, the ones that are wrong. It was also quite a feasible storyline in a futuristic world. I think most women have been sexually objectified in one way or another on more than one occasion. This book felt especially relevant with news articles about women being followed and murdered etc. I was looking forward to a society where women were in control for a change, having the upper hand and re-educating men about where they are going wrong.
The book describes how “The Movement” first began, how it has grown and how it developed into what it is in the “present day” within the book, with large facilities dedicated to re-educating men.

The book is told from point of view of one of the women workers, a guard at one of the larger re-education centres as she goes about her job. She tells the reader about the facility she works in, how it looks, where the males live whilst there in dormitory style rooms, though there are some smaller and single occupancy rooms too. The guard describes her surroundings, where she resides within the building, what she does in her spare time, as well as what her work entails. There are set tasks the men have to work through to gain more luxuries/freedoms and take steps to be being “graduating” as reformed. There are craft and hobby tasks for the men’s free time when they are not in specific classes or counselling sessions. The facility has open days where women can visit and take a look around before enrolling their husbands, partners or male relatives there. It isn’t a free solution, the women/men pay for the service that The Movement supply.

I started the book, interested in what to me, had seemed an intriguing, futuristic society. I managed to read around 30% of the book before the language and descriptions of “therapies” the men endured and had to react, or in some cases not react to pass and progress. I am not a prude and it wasn’t really just the explicit language and descriptions that put me off as much as the monotonous of the book. There wasn’t enough plot, or anything it just seemed fixated on the men’s reactions to different images of women of different ages and dressed in different ways.

I put the book down and went off and read others and then returned to give this book another try on at least three occasions before I finally decided I just couldn’t force myself to read any more of this book. It was frustrating that the female guard didn’t have a name revealed to perhaps humanise her a bit. At times both she and the book felt robotic.

I would have much preferred to have had more of the story of the earlier days of the Movement and the women involved in that, with perhaps stories of how the first men were re-educated. As well as what had happened in the world to encourage and accept such institutions being built.

I was disappointed to not continue reading the book to the end but there comes a point when you know no matter how many times you try to read a book you just are just not going to be able to wade through it. I honestly can’t foresee myself ever going back to it and finishing it at all. I read that the book has been translated from another language so perhaps some of the flow of the plot.

Summing up, I seriously had high hopes for this book imagining some equivalent institution, perhaps comparable to that of the handmaids training centre in Margaret Attwoods book. This book just felt like it was going on and on, repeating and labouring the same point. Some of the scenes told in excruciatingly detailed ways. Sadly this book just wasn’t what I had thought it may be and didn’t improve enough to continue reading or continue to revisit anymore.

Future. Men are not allowed to be attracted to women based on their physical attributes. Some men agree willingly, but most are sent by their wives to the Institute for reeducation.

I love dystopian fiction, so I was excited when I came across this book.
The story had a great premise, but I wish it was executed differently. I wasn't keen on the memoir-style of narration, and the ending felt anticlimactic. However, the concept had me intrigued and kept me interested.
I was on the fence about the rating but decided I couldn't justify giving it more than 2 stars.

I love satire. (The Atmospherians, released earlier this year, was so smart.) I really thought The Movement would be similar but more intellectually in-depth satirical novel with its "feminist theory put into action" angle, but I found a lot of the story repetitive and wildly philosophical as well as slow-paced. The entire storyline is about a female-dominant society forcing men (and some women) to not find physical aspects of a woman's body desirable, instead turning their entire focus to a woman's character and personality. An interesting concept and tongue-in-cheek critique of heteronormative sexuality, this short book (just over 200 pages) would have worked better as a short story.

Czech writer Petra Hulova’s The Movement is a dystopian novel written as a memoir penned by Vera, a former decorator at Pornjoy, a company producing of sex dolls, and now an educator in one of the correction Institutes established by The Movement. The Movement is an organisation that fights the sexualised, objectified images of women that proliferate in our world (which many women embrace) while promoting body positivity, a way of looking at a woman’s inner beauty despite age and body looks. Having gained power on the territory, The Movement has opened correction Institutes where men are reformed and taught to look at inner beauty: This is Vera’s world, and she takes us by the hand to explore the reform process from start to finish. . I was expecting a champion of #metoo and of the body positive movement, but I was immediately taken aback by the sadistic, grotesque techniques implemented to obtain the conversion. So what is going on?

Let's be clear. The Movement IS a desecrating, sharp, multi-layered political and satirical novel that points the finger toward gender-stereotypes, body politics and the objectification of women, in the forms that bombard us every day from billboards, the media, ads, and the way women are complicit (often a woman is judged based on her looks and, as McGill’s The Visibility Trap has demonstrated, the media can further amplify body shaming and marginalisation). Hulova identifies the problem but also investigates how problems can be instrumentalised and manipulated according to the context they arise in.

Indeed, Hulova asks what change can be like today in a former Eastern Bloc country, where the past is not too distant and populism a reality (or somewhere else, for this matter), and she imagines what sort of individual and solutions might emerge in these particular contexts to make things right. As a result we have a novel that deeply engages with contemporary political issues: while trying to promote equality, the Movement’s politics also seek to exploit people's sentiment and discontent, conceal its authoritarian ways behind a liberal facade, promote repression and control over minds and bodies up to the most intimate level, redirect toward the traditional family (which in real life is a hallmark of conservative governments), promotes the cult of personality (Rita, the founder), quarantines the Romas and tries to convert refugees to its mores. Told from the point of view of one of its apparatchiks, a disempowered woman who has find purpose in The Movement, The Movement has all the flavour of Soviet style re-education facilities and of the great Czech (and Russian) satirical novel (think of Hasek’s The Good Soldier).

This novel also contains several references to sexual practices, pornographic images and nudity, used in Pavlovian-style conditioning as the basis for its re-education system,. These scenes are unsettling, disturbing and can make you uncomfortable but are relevant in a Czech novel on body politics. As mentioned, Vera worked in the porn industry. Pornography was illegal in Czechoslovakia during the Communist regime but was legalised after the 1989 Velvet revolution. Since then, the Czech Republic has developed a thriving porn industry, one that sparks debate at the intersection of empowerment, freedom, objectification, neoliberalism and exploitation.. Possibly, it is as if Hulova wanted to point out the inability to truly educate and promote freedom and values from within, or address the Czech involvement in this industry.

An intelligent, dark satire, a dystopia and a political novel firmly grounded in contemporary politics, The Movement problematises the present and expresses deep discomfort with it, as if we knew that battles worth fighting may turn out for the worst in the wrong political circumstances (coincidentally written at the same time as Kalfar’s 2017 Spaceman of Bohemia, also expressing political pessimism in speculative form). However, it must be said it is not a perfect novel It is disturbing at times, shocking at times. a bit repetitive, and parts could have been shorter,

According to the publisher, the image in the cover represent the dangers of a society that conforms to gender stereotypes but also the dangers of addressing these issues through re-education and brainwashing. One may be looking at only one side of the story and consider this text offensive. but it is this duplicity that is the very essence of this complex novel, which is interesting, outrageous and original. 3.5 rounded up.

My thanks to World Edition Books for translating thought-provoking literature into English and for an ARC of this novel via Netgalley.

I enjoyed the premise of this book, a feminist utopia where men are taught to appreciate women for their internal rather than external qualities, but unfortunately, to me, the rest of the book was a disappointment. Maybe it was the translation, but I found it difficult to relate to any of the characters or care about what happened to them.
Thank you to netgalley and World editions for an advance copy of this book

What a truly dismal book. What has the potential to be a dystopian female-run world is a covert critique of feminism, combined with a blatant disregard for the ageing process, unnecessary Islamophobia and normalised sexual assault.

I was so surprised by the angle taken. Granted, there were moments that encourage the reader to reflect - including the very obvious fact that radicalism on any side of a spectrum can have dark consequences and that it's easy in echo chambers not to see the bigger picture, however the potential simply wasn't delivered.

The plot, aimed at desexualising youth by forcing men to desire elderly women was written by repeatedly outlining all the things unpleasant about a woman's body over the age of 20. The book repeatedly explained why men wouldn't enjoy the body and why this view should change, vs actually offering self-love. Reading through the lines, I'd say there was a lot of self-hatred coming through.

Additionally, the version of 'feminism' offered was a caricature of third-wave feminism at best but read more like someone who didn't know what feminism was and believed it was 'man hating'. Popping out of reality for a world of only women sounded appealing, but read as though the reader was being punished for even having an interest in the topic.

Really poor work, a disappointing read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I do love a dystopian novel, particularly when it comes to exploring gender issues. Not in this case though. The book is set too far into an alternate future to have any grounding in reality, and have that "scary" or "what if this could really happen" feeling. The main premise that the author presents is valid; women should be admired for their internal qualities like intelligence rather than based on looks alone. However how this is developed turns rather into unpleasant reading. There are factions who opposed "The Movement" but we only hear the results and not the reasons why - I would have liked more backstory. The book is too focussed on the Re-Education of men and not the bigger picture.

This thought-provoking near-future dystopia depicts a world in which men are re-programmed to value women for their inner qualities and not their physical attributes and appearance. Men are forbidden from being attracted to women on the basis of their bodies and women are forbidden to use make-up or undergo cosmetic surgery to make themselves more attractive for men. In this brave new world women too need to be re-educated. The Movement of the title is the feminist revolution that has taken over control of the ideology and has set-up Institutes to which men are compelled to go if they are unable or unwilling to accept the new ways. The story is narrated by an instructor and guard at one of these re-education facilities and she describes, in often graphic detail, how this re-programming is to be achieved. The narrator is a true believer and feels sure the Movement is on its way to complete victory, when all outdated and damaging attitudes will be overcome. The central premise of the book is laudable and it all starts promisingly enough, but descriptions of the treatment become increasingly repetitive and unconvincing, and the men involved are no more than ciphers. The narrator herself, although obviously unreliable, is portrayed without nuance and comes across as very unsympathetic and one-dimensional, although on the odd occasion we get glimpses of what has brought her to her current convictions. My main problem with the book is that I couldn’t see how such radical transformation would actually make for a better world. The men’s indoctrination is at the very least distasteful and although the ideas behind the book are both timely and relevant, and we can only applaud the author exploring the shallowness of society’s attitudes towards women, overall the book has so little humanity in it that it loses any possible impact.

A utopian world where men are trained to like women for the inner qualities and not their outer appearance is an intriguing story line that captured my attention.
I love the premise of it, but found the way it was told quite disappointing. (I'm not sure if it is slightly lost in translation) but the narration is slightly monotonous and left me wanting to know so much more. I would have loved it more had the book taken me through the uprising, how the institute came to be, what life outside the institute is like etc.

Wow, I am learning that I like these dystopian stories that seem so bizarre yet kind of scary! This book was a little crazy but I liked the idea behind the story. I was thinking of a few ways I had hoped it would go to add to the overall story, so the ending was a little flat for me.
"Little girls should be focused on looking out at the world,not how somebody else looks at them, or on outward appearances, the way their mothers often were, worrying if they looked sexy enough."
The Movement was established to retrain men to see woman differently. They shouldn't be viewed as objects but as equals to men. Any form of plastic surgery is forbidden and if a man tries to push his wife to have any done, to wear makeup or even dress a certain way a wife can sign her husband up for treatment. The Movement is vert strict and the men are watched constantly. They must go through many stages of the training process to reprogram their brains to see women differently. Posters will be hung in their rooms for night time "self-stimulation but they are of real women. Older women with real bodies, wrinkles, loose skin, scars, hair, and the men must learn to relieve themselves to this type of woman or their stay will be extended. They go through workshops and all sorts of training to make sure they are ready to go back home to their wife and children.
In The Movement women rule the world and the men must do what's asked of them or risk staying long term.

Not for me personally - I found it a little difficult to read at times and not a lot seemed to happen.

This felt like a mildly amusing joke that went on far too long.
That's basically the best way I can think to describe it.
Definitely unique and interesting,and more than a little odd.

I really wanted to love this book. I thought it was going to be a biting satire, maybe something like The Handmaid's Tail.

But it just wasn't. First of all - I'm afraid I was not able to finish this book. While the premise was sound, execution was not great. This may be as it's a translation, but I think it's just the author's style.

There were parts in the first quarter that were great - lots of quality soundbites around men and women, the patriarchy etc. I have saved quite a lot of these. But the story really didn't seem to go anywhere, and some parts were veering from the uncomfortable to the farcical. It's written in the style of a memoir, and the voice if very dry.

I got 60% of the way through and couldn't finish. Thank you for the opportunity to read, but this one wasn't for me.