Femlandia is set in a near future dystopian America, following a complete economic collapse Miranda and her daughter, Emma, have no alternative but to seek refuge in the women-only colony established by Miranda’s estranged mother, Win.

If you like dystopian fiction with commentary on feminism then you’ll probably enjoy this book. It’s very readable and there’s just enough intrigue to draw you in and make you want to find out how things will go. This book isn’t afraid to get dark but the real scary thought is just how believable the premise is.

All that said, this book didn’t blow me away. It didn’t feel as original as it could have done. Most of the twists were very predictable and I do wish more time had been spent on really building a sense of life in the commune rather than on constantly trying to find out if there’s a deep, dark secret. I also struggled to connect with the characters, particularly Emma whose action I never really understood despite the explanation given late in the book, she just seemed very underdeveloped. The other characters came across as very one dimensional and stereotypical. I did like that we got to see different stances on feminism and the role of men but I feel a lot of the nuisance of these issues was missed.

A really interesting concept that just wasn’t well executed in a lot of ways. There are definite strong points though and I know this book will appeal more to many others.

This book fell flat for me. I wasn’t gripped and didn’t find it compelling. The premise sounded interesting but I ended up being bored so I DNFed 50% in.

Going from one of the best books of the year to one of the worst. All I can remember from this book is the hate towards everything especially men. I like reading dystopian books but this book took the idea of feminism just too far, way too far.

I was keen to read this book having read Dalcher's previous two.
I found it quite shocking to read about how the world had gone completely to pot and the times Emma and Miranda were living in.
I enjoyed the different time settings where we found out about Win and Miranda's different past experiences, bur didn't particularly like the characters of Emma or Win. The utopia aspect was interesting, but horrifying when you realise what happens to the "wrong" gender.
Once again I felt like there were pacing issues with the story, with the build up taking ages and the ending being rushed and the back stories of the other women pretty much being glossed over.
Interesting options for how the ending might turn out, but for all the ideas in the story I found it to be a depressing end to a sad tale.
There are definite comparisons to be made to Atwood's Handmaid's Tale but I feel this story could have been so much more than it was.
My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my eARC in return for my honest review.

I enhoyed both of Christina Dalcher's previous books, Q and Vox, and she continues the theme of very Atwood-esque dystopias in Femlandia. For me though this really fell short in comparison. What was so good about Q and Vox was that the dystopian future for women portrayed in them felt like it could actually happen - it was scary because it felt real. Femlandia becomes more of an adventure/survival story, and the premise is never really fully explained. It's muddled and confused (wait, do we hate the men or the women in the Femlandia communities?).

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest, independent review.

Thanks to an economic collapse, America is on its knees. Shops are empty and the streets are no longer safe. Miranda has lost her home, her job and her husband; she and her daughter Emma only have each other left.

They only have one hope: Femlandia. A self-sufficient haven for women who want a life free of men.

I've been sitting on this review for a few weeks, trying to sum up how I felt about Femlandia.

Unfortunately, I did not like it as much as Dalcher's previous two novels, Vox and Q, which I loved. Although thought-provoking, I found it unsettling and uncomfortable at times; it is certainly not a book for the fainthearted!

The plot promises a lot, but to me, it fails to deliver at times and feels unbelievable and unengaging at times. I did not connect with any of the characters at all - I found Miranda boring and quite one-dimensional - and didn't care what happened to them.

It feels like it's a bit of a Marmite book to me, and sadly it was not for me.

An incredible dystopian novel again, but what would you expect from Christina Dalcher.

I adored this pacy, thrill ride. There's something quite interesting about being in a pandemic and reading about how it could be worse!

As ever a masterful look at a difficult subject with some upsetting themes but Dalcher is an expert.

Brilliant.

Dystopian fiction was never really my bag until I read 'Q' by Christina Dalcher. I was then very excited for Femlandia to be released. I still have 'Vox' on my bookshelf but I will definitely be reading that soon.

Femlandia follows Miranda who is in her forties and she has a sixteen year old daughter named Emma. America has suffered a huge economic collapse and right at the beginning of it, her husband Nick commits suicide. In present times everything is shut down, food supplies are limited and the women have lost their home and everything they owned.

Miranda's mother Win Somers set up a women-only commune called Femlandia decades before. Miranda never agreed with her mother that all men were evil and to be avoided, so Win took Miranda's best friend Jen Jones under her wing as she shared the same values.

The idea caught on and lots of Femlandia's were set up all across America. These communes are free from men and are fully sustainable and self-sufficient. Miranda thinks that maybe her only shot at staying alive is to join her closest one. Her mother has since passed but Sister Jen is still there. After getting to Femlandia she realises that maybe this isn't the utopia that it first appears to be.

The chapters alternate between present tense when Miranda and Emma are in Femlandia and also Win Somers' background and Miranda's childhood. These weave easily together and really help build the story.

Dalcher can really paint a picture with words and everything is described in such a way that you can just imagine being there amongst it. It is a very hard read at times with a lot of mention of rape and sexual assault. Femlandia, the commune, is anti-trans women too so that is something to be aware of before reading.

It is an interesting one because it could so very easily be true and that is what I love and Dalcher's novels. I am a thriller reader and she kind of merges thriller and dystopian fiction together. I love a twist and this one has them!

I must confess I have mixed feelings about dystopian novels but Christina Dalcher is an author who has been on my radar for a while having heard good things about Vox but never got round to reading it - and as I like to read outside my genre comfort zones every so often, I was intrigued to read Dalcher's latest book Femlandia. It is a pretty dark book with some disturbing themes and some thoroughly unlikeable characters. It is certainly not an easy read but it is a book that made me keep turning the pages and gave me lots to think about.

When America faces total economic collapse Miranda’s life becomes a living nightmare - her husband has committed suicide, she has lost her house and the shops are empty. She realises that the best chance of survival for her and her daughter lies in going to the women’s only commune, Femlandia, Miranda’s mother created. It’s a decision she comes to reluctantly, as her relationship with her mother was a fairly toxic one and she never agreed with her extremist views, but in a world where food is scarce and day to day living is such a struggle, the opportunity to join a wholly self-sufficient set up initially seems like something of a utopia. However, it doesn’t take long for Miranda to realise that the commune’s methods are nothing short of barbaric and her mother and her former best friend are to blame. How far will Miranda go to expose the truth - and how far will the commune go to protect their secrets?

It is certainly not a book for everyone but I found it a thought-provoking read in particular around how and why cults flourish and for that reason I am glad I read it.

I wanted to love this book. I read Dalcher's first book, Vox, when that came out and found it fell short of expectations; I'd hoped, being her third novel, the experience she now has under her belt would mean this one would be better. It is and it isn't.

Viewed purely from the perspective of readability, Femlandia is better than Vox. It lacks the overly scientific and medical language used in the first novel, which detached me from the plot, and the main character, Miranda, is a little more likeable than Vox's Jean. However, it still didn't grab me in the way I would usually be grabbed by a dystopian novel - this is, after all, my favourite genre. It's tough going and only really picks up pace in the final fifth. The supporting cast are pretty one-dimensional and Miranda is a barrel of contradictions. Exclusionary comments a character makes about the trans and non-binary community go unchallenged, which didn't sit particularly well with me, and the portrayal of the susceptibility of the younger generation felt a bit condescending.

Ultimately I felt that the novel undermines itself. It's not, as you might expect, feminist. Feminist ideals are caricatured and demonised, taken to an extreme which is unsavoury and cult-like and, ultimately, as we see in the epilogue, overturned in favour of a return to a patriarchal society. I feel like Dalcher thinks she injected hope into the ending but there's nothing hopeful about it to me.

Many thanks to the publisher/author/netgalley for a copy of this book!

Before going into this book I think it’s important to discuss the trigger warnings surrounding this book, despite the fantastic idea with this read.. this book is a heavy one.

I’m still processing my thoughts on this one as I am not 100% sure how I feel. On one hand, the idea of women sticking together during the economic collapse sounds like it could be empowering however what happens throughout the book seemed to take that ideology too far.

The first third of the book, there wasn’t a decent male character at all, and i thought this was unnecessary.

There was also a lot of surprising violence in this book as well, this was mainly *tasteful (if you can call it that) however I did struggle to make it through the book.

The main thing I did like was the main character and the relationship with her daughter,

Femlandia is an engaging narrative with a Feminist slant of a near future dystopian world beset by a world-wide economic meltdown. Following the maternal lives of three generations of one family as they experience a moment of crisis. Forced to flee their crumbling suburban world, Miranda and Emma must see help from the community of women founded by their mother/grandmother Win. As you would expect from a novel by Dalcher, all is not as it seems in the utopian idyll. A critique of the current world of extremis, where any single idea taken to its purist form poses harm to all humanity.
Plenty of twists and turns - a real page turner.

Imagine that there has been a financial crash, imagine that the world has changed, imagine that everyone is losing everything they own, imagine that people are taking their own lifes, or are dying of starvation and disease, or losing their minds, imagine that the world isn't safe, especially if you are female, imagine that you find an enclosed female only colony, imagine that it isn't quite the Utopia you thought that it would be..'Anything a man can do a Woman can do equally well'...
A troubling tale about a dystopian future. A story of misogyny and misandry, and power and control, and a Mothers love

Having loved Vox and Q I couldn't wait to read the author's latest dystopian novel which is set in the United States in the not so distant future.

The world has suffered a huge economic crash and before long life is not as the main characters Miranda and her daughter Emma know it. They managed to survive for a little while before the baliffs came, then the shops had no food left and the electricity is cut off at home. It's not safe being outside now but with little supplies left and despite Miranda not wishing to ask her estranged mother for help they decide to head for Femlandia.

On the way they have a run in with a pack of men and without her mother's help Emma would have been brutally attacked. Shaken they carry on to Femlandia, a woman only haven run by her mother and sidekick Jen. Once inside Miranda quickly realises all is not well and I found the storylines quite disturbing.

In the epilogue we have a glimpse at what happened afterwards and I thought it gave the story closure.

Femlandia is the latest thriller, dystopian novel by Christina Dalcher, the author of Vox and Q (Master Class). This speculative fiction novel is set in a world where economic collapse has bought America to its knees. As a result, there’s a shortage of food, fuel, and other resources, and the country has turned to one of violence and unsafety.

The book’s main character Miranda Reynolds, has lost her job, her husband, and her home. She and her daughter have nowhere left to turn but there is one final hope, Femlandia. A self-sufficient haven for women (or womyn) only that was created by Miranda’s mother, Win Somers.

For Miranda, who struggled to agree with many of her mother’s outlooks on life, Femlandia is the last resort now that life outside the gates is so dangerous for her and her daughter Emma. Upon arrival though, the utopia of Femlandia isn’t quite what it seems and Miranda begins to discover dark and sinister secrets.

The novel’s plot flicks back and forth from different characters and timelines, following the stories of Miranda, and Win Somers. By structuring the novel this way, Dalcher builds the suspense without the plot even further, leaving readers on several small cliff-hangers throughout the book.

Femlandia is Christina Dalcher’s third feminist dystopian fiction novel, cementing her name in the genre. It tells a new story, however, there are a few themes that seem to carry through from one novel to the next; the main female characters in each novel for example all have some qualification and/or job in linguistics and communication, this is perhaps because the author herself is a linguist so she has followed the rule of writing what you know.

Much like Vox and Q, Femlandia is a fast-paced novel that is gripping, thrilling, and full of twists, turns, and shocking reveals. It is a truly chilling tale that is perhaps all too plausible and may leave readers with a bitter, anxious aftertaste. Even in the utopia scenes when Miranda and Emma first arrive at Femlandia, Dalcher maintains the chilling tone, hinting subtly and the darker undertones and leaving readers hooked to the page desperate to find out what is truly happening behind the scenes.

For me, the only downside to this book was the ending which didn’t quite feel right to me. Without giving away too much in the way of spoilers, I do find it hard to believe that children – raised in a land that has never known the patriarchal structure of the outside world – would fall ‘naturally’ into stereotypical gendered roles given for example what we know about matriarchal communities from around the world in history but perhaps I am wrong, and after all, it is the writer's artistic license to choose how characters interact.

Sinister, compelling and thought-provoking in the questions it forces readers to ask themselves, Femlandia follows well in the footsteps of Vox and Q, exposing the dangers of the modern world without gender equity, and creating a thoroughly fascinating and equally terrifying read.

Having devoured both ‘Vox’ and ‘Q’, I was very eager and excited to read this new offering. Unfortunately the delivery of promised themes of feminism and dystopia, fell flat for me. Perhaps the content was too similar to her previous novels.

I didn’t find ‘Femlandia’ as compelling or engrossing. As a result, I felt uninterested in the plot and outcomes.

Could you live in a world without men?

Would you even want to?

This is the question that Christina poses in her latest novel. I come back to an old saying, can't live with them, can't live without them.

When the country collapses and everyone is literally fighting to survive.

Miranda Reynold’s husband Nick chooses the worst time to leave her and their teenage daughter Emma behind. A simple text to her saying he’s sorry before driving the Maserati coupe off the side of the mountain.

Femlandia appears to be the only place to go for Miranda Reynolds and her daughter Emma even though Miranda doesn't want to as for her the concept isn't one that she's fully on board with.

Founded by her own mother, Femlandia is known as a sort of feminist utopia, a safe place for womyn (no man) where they can live freely.

But all is not as it seems, and Miranda discovers quite early on in their stay that they've been sold a dream when in fact it is the stuff of nightmares.

Now this is a hard book to review without giving too much away.

What I will say is this, Femlandia is a story that makes you think.

There are so a lot of subjects in this book which could be extremely triggering including extreme violence, rape, invest etc. Hard to read about at times but Christina writes about them sensibly and sensitively.

Dark and disturbing.

I have to admit that Femlandia isn't my favourite Dalcher novel but it still packs a punch.

Fuck this book.

Sorry. Let me try again.

Seriously, fuck this book.

I was so excited for this one. It promised feminism and dystopia – two of my favourite things to read about. Instead, what I found in this story were harmful depictions of feminism, a hefty dose of TERF-ness, a hearty dash of ‘not all men’ somehow mixed with a generous splash of ‘men are disgusting animals’, all in a bright pink package with two ‘X’s on the cover.

The world we are plunged into has completely fallen apart, because apparently a crash in the stock market results in people turning feral. This is actually believable, given that we’re living through a pandemic in which people fight over toilet paper in stores and panic-buy gas to the point it all runs out. So far, I’m on board with the story and the idea that people suck, because *gestures at everything*.

The MC is one of the flattest, unlikeable characters I’ve ever read. I’ve legit just forgotten her name – that’s how much she bored me. She spends half her time thinking about Starbucks and manicures and the other half thinking about the frankly useless-sounding rich dude she was married too, before he lost all their money as well as all their friends’ money then drove of a cliff because he just couldn’t take the pressure. Yeah. I’d miss him too. What a catch. Although she doesn’t seem to miss him as much as she misses being a kept woman. At one point when she’s remembering overhearing her friends talking shit about how she’d turned into an image-obsessed, designer-wearing, vapid tradwife, I know we’re supposed to think ‘Wow your friends are so mean!’ but I found myself agreeing with them.

She and her personality-less daughter are on their way to seek refuge in ‘Femlandia’, a womyn-only community founded by Miranda’s (there’s her name) man-hating, feminist mother. And, of course, when they arrive, after *incidents*, things aren’t as they seem…cue the dramatic music.

Before I get into spoilers, let me say, I understand the point the author is trying to make. She doesn’t let you NOT understand it. She hits you over the head with it, several times. Yes, we get it, extremism bad. Men good. Equality, not supremacy. Power corrupts. Yawn.

And now, stop reading if you don’t want spoilers. I’m going to elaborate on the exact reasons I hate this book:

I wanted to know more about the community. But nope, from the second our MC arrives at Femlandia, we’re stuck watching her try to be clever and bring the place down from the inside. Fuck this dumb bitch, I want to know more about their village and its rules, how they work the land, who makes the kaftans. But nope.

Of course a community free from men would be filled with vile women who see no problem with keeping male babies as livestock and forcing them to masturbate into a cup once they are able in order to ensure a supply of semen to keep reproduction going. That’s like, feminism 101. Duh.

If you’re gonna be all ‘not all men’, give us some decent men to relate to. The men in this are either roving gangs of beasts who fuck and kill their way across the barren wasteland, or helpless boy-children held captive by the evil radfems. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot about Miranda’s husband. What a prince.

TERFY TERFY TERF!!! Transwomen are briefly addressed in the beginning, in a rather vile way, when Miranda is ‘inspected’ at the gates of Femlandia to make sure she’s ‘always been a woman’. Some rather nasty and predictable comments about transwomen follow, and then the whole subject is dropped and never mentioned again. And those XX chromosomes identifying one as ‘female’ turn up frequently through the rest of the story.

What the fuck was that little epilogue? The bit where a hundred years in the future, you find out that once again, men are in charge and women are domestic because everyone is just ‘hardwired that way’?

Fuck this book and its harmful depictions of feminism, insulting portrayals of men, rampant transphobia, and boring one-dimensional characters. Oh yeah, thank you Net Galley and HQ for a digital copy of this book in exchange for a brutally honest review.

My thanks to HQ for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Femlandia’ by Christina Dalcher in exchange for an honest review.

This is an extremely dark book that I found disturbing throughout. I would place a warning on it for mature themes and possible triggers.

Set in the very near future the novel’s narrator, Miranda Reynolds has lost her home, her job and her husband following an economic collapse that has devastated American society. Seeking a haven for herself and her 16-year-old daughter, Emma, they travel to Femlandia, a self-sufficient community for womyn, who want to live their lives completely separate from men.

Femlandia is a last resort for Miranda as the community had been founded by her radical feminist mother, Wim Somers. To say they had a toxic relationship is an understatement.

It is clear from the moment that Miranda and Emma turn up at the gates of Frelandia that it’s far from a Utopia. An intimate examination is required by its gatekeeper “to satisfy myself that you were always a woman”. Miranda is shocked by this exclusionary rule though it sets the stage for the nature of the strictly regulated community.

Almost from her first moments in Femlandia Miranda is aware of its dangers. There are further shocking revelations along the way. In addition, Emma quickly bonds with Jennifer (Jen) Jones, the co-founder of Femlandia, much to Miranda’s distress as again they have a complex history.

The narrative shifts between the present and past with events in Miranda’s life. There are also chapters that detail Win’s earlier life and her relationships with Miranda and Jen.

So dystopia without and within! Aside from its disturbing themes, I found this novel had no likeable main characters including Miranda. However, it was an interesting examination of how something that begins as an idealistic experiment can shift over time into a dangerous cult of personality.

Indeed, Manson and the Family, Koresh and the Branch Davidians as well as Rev. Jones and the Kool-aid in Guyana are referred to in the text. Also, is Jen’s surname another reminder? If so, it’s not a particularly subtle analogy.

Overall, ‘Femlandia’ was a difficult reading experience. Yet we live in a world where extremist groups do find adherents and Christina Dalcher has highlighted in this novel how a desire for a safe space can become in itself toxic.

In her Author’s Note, Christina Dalcher cites the 1915 feminist utopian novel, ‘Herland’, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman as her direct inspiration for ‘Femlandia’, though she admits to have taken a radically different approach by spinning it into a dystopia.

So, I am left perplexed by ‘Femlandia’. It is misandrist or at least a number of its characters are and as the incident at the gate demonstrates the community also excludes trans women. Yet these attitudes are what makes this a dystopia. ‘Femlandia’ is not celebrating them but showing them as despicable.

As such this is a novel that is bound to create controversy as well as to generate discussion with respect to its themes. To my mind this is a good thing as while it made for uncomfortable reading, some novels are written to highlight and question aspects of society rather than as escapism or entertainment.

So, I am rating it as 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

With the country in economic collapse, Miranda and her daughter Emma are left homeless and wondering the street. The only place left to go is Femlandia, the female only colony, the utopia in a broken world, but is everything as it seems.

The beginning of this was a little slow and I found myself re-reading some sentences, but it wasn't long before I was completely gripped and couldn't stop reading.
With empty shop shelves, fights in the grocery queue, and petrol stations with no petrol, the beginning of this book hits a little close to home! As with other dystopian books I have read, it's not too far away from reality to be believable.