I liked Vox, I joined the queue for Q, and I couldn’t wait to get reading Femlandia.
This book is a great deconstruction of society wrapped up in that wonderful dystopian what if storyline.
Imagine the world as you know if is falling apart, theres no point going to work if you even still have a job, items that are considered essentials are so expensive you likely cant afford them – if theres even any left and just to make it a little worse your hubby recently committed suicide after wiping clean what money you did have.
Luckily Femlandia still exists. There are various ways to describe Femlandia, a cult, a group of like minded women, trapped individuals, Disneyland for women or just a group of women who went in search of a better life.
For Miranda and her teenage daughter Emma there is nowhere else to turn, they learn things about themselves, each other and their pasts whilst interlacing with Mirandas mums narrative, the woman who created Femlandia. Miranda has never been convinced her mums way is the right way, she’s more about the normal lifestyle: partner, kids, house car and job. Men can be jerks but that’s okay because that’s just life and they re not all like that.
Femlandia has some dark secrets that concern Miranda from the moment the lay eyes on the compound. The walls keeping people out, or in. The way they refer to each other, but she cant deny that most people seem happy enough and they are definitely better off than those in the outside world right now.
This book is really interesting because it touches on so many different uncomfortable topics, but they just support the story. Im still trying to decide how I feel about the epilogue though – it rounds off the story perfectly and feels like the natural conclusion; its just not the one I wanted.
The characters in the book really develop as you get deeper into the plot, you get to know them and I found myself siding with Miranda a lot, but could completely get on board with all of the others who had opposing actions or POVs. It’s a great book and you should really go and preorder it now!

I think this book might be a bit marmitey but sadly this wasnt really for me,
A fascinating concept where women who have been affected badly by the "hatriarchy" take refuge in a place by the women, for the women.
Miranda and Emma's story starts quite horrifically and graphically which is why they visit Femlandia. There is a whole host of events that unfold and for me it was just too far fetched and disturbing.

Femlandia

Christina Dalcher always does a great job of showing a terrifying future and creating characters that are both amazing yet frustrating. Femlandia is almost like how you can imagine society after the events of Vox, women fed up with the constraints of patriarchy decide to live in a community on their own.

During a time of crisis, Miranda finds herself abandoned with nothing left but her teenage daughter Emma. Her husband has killed himself, her friends have outcasted her, and there is no where for her go apart from “Femlandia”; a concept created by her mother that provides a community exclusive to women. Knowing that this is her only chance of survival, she goes to “Femlandia” for safety.

What I loved the most about this was how it showed us the dangers of political divisions in terms of gender. You can definitely empathise with the reasons why women would want to live separate from men so they don’t feel constrained by patriarchy, however it seems as though the restraints of men is replaced with other restraints, the members of the community still aren’t free and are still subject to authoritarian rule.

Something I feel like I can’t leave this review without mentioning is the fact that “Femlandia” (both the book and the concept within) views gender as extremely binary. To the founders there is just the male and female and nothing in between. What about people who are intersex, or those assigned male at birth who now identify as a woman? Or even members who were trans men? There was very little focus of the intersections of gender and sex, however this could have been to emphasis even further the danger of strict divisions in society.

All in all, this was a good book, I just feel like there were a few missed opportunities for discussion. For that I’ll give this 3 stars.

2.5 stars

I’ve been thinking about this book for a few days since I finished it and to be honest, while this is a book that made me feel a lot of things, I can’t quite put my thoughts together on this one!

In the midst of economic downfall of apocalyptic scale of looting, starving and no order, Miranda tries to keep herself and her daughter Emma alive, previously a self confessed glamorous woman, until banks lost all money and her husband Nick betrayed her before taking her life, Miranda’s life becomes survival and that can only mean one thing - Femlandia, a society created by her mother Win, and her protege (and perceived replacement) Jen. Located in several states, Femlandia is essentially a woman, or rather womyn (so as not to be associated with men at all) only society, where food and water and security is abundant, but at what price?

Femlandia attempts to answer the question ‘what would it be like if men didn’t exist?’ however I’ll admit I struggled to understand the intent of the book. Vox spoke a bold, clear message about women being silenced, however the message here felt not even like ‘not all men’ nut ‘sometimes women too’. Is this about what happens when you let your hate of men consume you? I just couldn’t grasp it. There is an attempted gang rape on the page by a group of men and Win and her narrative (paralleling Miranda’s) speaks of continuous oppression and abuse at the expense of men, as is the experience of other women in Femlandia. There is a quote in the book about surely if we believe in equality, if a woman can do anything a man can, if she is capable, surely that means she is capable of the same cruelty and dominance. I think perhaps this too is the purpose of the book, but is it necessary? Especially after Vox? This is a book in which women are abusers and emotionally manipulative, women take bodily autonomy away. This latter point is particularly disturbing, it made me mentally stumble, and it’s even more bizarre for how women are the ones who, in truth, don’t have autonomy in so much of this world. I may just not get it, it could be me but i didn’t understand it.

This is a well written book but a disturbing one and I’ll admit I much preferred Vox. Thank you NetGalley for the early copy to review. It wasn’t for me but I’m sure other people will take something more from it.

With this, her third book, Dalcher establishes her place as the queen of speculative fiction, examining current issues through a 'what if' lens in chilling worlds not that far removed from our own. And so in Femlandia where the US economy (and, it's implied, the global economy too) has dramatically crashed thanks to short term economic planning and consumerism, leaving chaos, violence and hunger in its wake.
Miranda has been left alone with her teenage daughter after her husband, unable to face up to his failure, kills himself. Her furniture has been foreclosed upon, her car taken away, her credit card closed - but the store is out of food anyway. Although she adored her job working on communication with primates at the zoo, Miranda can't help but look back at her life as a cossetted trophy wife with disgust, the expensive hair cuts, coffees and gym memberships of no use to her now.
As the violence escalates Miranda knows there is only one place she and Emma, her daughter, might be safe - Femlandia, a women only commune founded by her dead mother, a woman who disapproved of all Miranda stood for, and who Miranda is aware had no boundaries when it came to achieving her goal. It's the last place she ever thought she would find sanctuary but she has little choice and so she and Emma embark on a dangerous and gruelling journey.
Miranda is expecting to find a ramshackle camp, but instead she finds a place closer to a high class spa, with happy, strong and self sufficient women. But something about Femlandia doesn't add up, and the closer Miranda looks, the darker the answers seem.
Femlandia is a high octane thriller that asks lots of uncomfortable questions, with a bleakness at its heart. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for early access to this book.

This is a solid dystopian book. I could easily picture the world that was describe. I think this would be a great summer read.