It's very hard to believe this was written pre-pandemic. So many similarities and echoes of our own present reality. Only, in the fictional virus in the End of Men, it truly is just men that are effected by it. The story isn't told in a linear fashion, nor is it even told by a single protagonist. It's more of a piecing together of news articles, snippets of the character's lives,

It does feel a little hurriedly edited, as if the book had originally a planned release in 2022 but had to be sped along in order to still be timely. This becomes especially apparent in some more "gotcha" moment, things that are eerily close to our current situation.

However, the virus in this book is very different to "our" current pandemic. Thank God. Because the alternate one is even worse. The mortality rate seems to be at about 90%, leaving the population decimated and the expected chaos ensues.

This is definitely a book I'll go back to reading once this current pandemic is over, as it's all a bit overwhelming and a little "too real" to stomach at the moment.

It's hard to believe this book was written years before this pandemic as it reflects what's happening.
A fascinating dystopia with a cast of well thought characters, great world building and good storytelling.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

We are all now experts in pandemics. This book was written before COVID 19 spread, but it predicts so many of the responses that we saw that it hardly seems fictional, and I felt myself judging the story in how it compared to real life.
The story starts off in a quiet domestic setting which sets the scene for how much will be lost as the story progresses. The first intimations of the disease are dramatic, deaths occur immediately, and there is awareness of the severity of the situation, but for the wider public the news spreads slowly. There are many strands and characters woven through the book giving different viewpoints on what is happening, and I found these did manage to cover many of the responses that I think would happen in the case of this specific a disease. The specificness of the disease, in that it causes symptoms and death only in men, gives a different perspective to the story. The world is not only fighting against the disease but how society would struggle with so many key players removed. It′s thought-provoking but not a diatribe against the patriarchy since so many of the viewpoints are about the intense anxiety and sorrow which comes from losing loved ones.

The search for a vaccine takes a different path in this book, and the result as well as the widespread devastation actually helped to make this book more encouraging than you might think for a pandemic-themed book during a pandemic. At the end I could only think, it could have been a lot worse.


I had a copy of this book early through Netgalley

Wow what a book. The End of Men tells the story of a virus sweeping the world which only kills the male population. The author wrote it a few years before the current pandemic we find ourselves in now and it's scary how accurate some of the story is.
I would highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC.

This book tells the story of a virus which only kills the males in the population. It was written before the current pandemic and it is scarily accurate to many things that are happening now. There are alot of characters in the book but I found them easy to follow and I enjoyed reading their stories and how they dealt with the situations they were in.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

In the near future - 2025 - a lethal virus, killing only men, is first identified in a Glasgow hospital, though no-one initially wants to listen to A&E consultant Amanda Maclean. Before long, though, it becomes impossible to ignore that something very bad is happening.

As the crisis deepens, governments panic and flounder. There are riots, shootings, a civil war in China. And husbands, sons, fathers and brothers are dying all over the world in unimaginable numbers.

It's really hard to believe that this book was written before the start of the current pandemic, because although there are - thankfully - significant differences (the virus affects only men, though women can be carriers, and is far more lethal, killing almost all sufferers within a few days of infection), there is also a lot that feels eerily similar, for instance: "I go out to get food, briefly and carefully as late as possible in the quiet of night time, touching no one, standing near no one." Sound familiar? A foreword by the author comments on how the prophetic aspects of the story resulted in her being dubbed "Cassandra" by some.

We see the progression of the pandemic over a considerable period of time via various people's stories - some followed throughout, like Amanda, the doctor who first identified the virus, and who is determined to track it back to its source; Catherine, an anthropologist; scientists working on a vaccine - and some whose experiences we only glimpse briefly - a woman working as a maid in Singapore, another whose remote Scottish farm becomes home to evacuated teenage boys, a man trapped on a cruise liner off the Icelandic coast. There's a lot of tragedy, inevitably, and devastating social and economic changes and upheavals as men become a small minority of the population. Meanwhile, US journalist Maria Ferreira charts the progress of the pandemic through a series of articles.

There are some very acute observations; for instance, intimidating a male intruder into fleeing by using the threat of infection, one woman comments: "This must be what men used to feel like. My mere physical presence is enough to terrify someone into running. No wonder they used to get drunk on it."

Inevitably there are huge swathes of stories left untold - as well as the UK and Scotland (by 2025 an independent republic), the US and Canada we see snippets from China, Singapore and New Zealand, but the effects of the "Plague" on Africa, for instance, are unknown.

There were several times when I doubted the wisdom of my decision to read this book during a real life pandemic especially early on. There's so much loss for almost all of the characters and it's heartbreaking at times (although strangely I only had tears in my eyes once, and that was at a moment of hope rather than despair).

A fascinating read and a very impressive debut novel, but only if you're feeling strong enough to take it...

It's the year 2025 and in Scotland a male patient has come in to the ER and after only a few days dies of an unknown virus. This is the start of a pandemic that only appears to affect males.
This is a topical book to read at the moment ! The story is told in a series of viewpoints from various people all over the world as they or family members are affected by the virus. It touches on a lot of what we are currently going through -Its a heartfelt, emotional and interesting read. I really enjoyed it and found myself agreeing with some of the story as it is so current !
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this thrilling read.

This is a book I found impossible to put down it was one of those reads that just took over every spare minute I had and even when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it. Reading a book about a pandemic whilst we are in the middle of one is a strange experience and although the virus in the book only affects men it sure made uncomfortable reading at times. There is so much going on in the book and many different points of view it deals with issues that you can never imagine, women losing husbands and sons, men dying worldwide and the race to find a vaccine are just some.
I must praise the complexity of the read and the stunning writing Christina Sweeney-Baird has done an amazing job in dealing with grief, loss and sadness whilst also making this a read that you won’t want to put down. Please don’t be put off by the subject matter this read is so much more than just a story about a pandemic it had friendships, hope and love making it a read that was amazing.
So a book I loved and a book that made me think and I love that in a read it’s one that I really can highly recommend.
My thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, The Borough Press for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Extraordinarily prescient and profoundly thought-provoking, The End of Men is set in the near future and opens in a Glasgow hospital in 2025 with no-nonsense A & E consultant, Dr Amanda Maclean, facing worrying signs of a potentially lethal virus. As a number of men present with flu like symptoms that escalate to death within hours it is Amanda who identifies Patient Zero, suggests that the virus is lethal to males alone and yet is ignored by public health authorities. An explosion of cases see the virus become a global pandemic with previously inconceivable implications for every aspect of society.

Dealing with her own personal grief as a wife and mother of two sons and yet determined to be heard and actually identify the source, Amanda is an inspirational figure. Her first-person narrative is just one of several that are followed and dominate the story along with that of an anthropology lecturer, a civil servant and one of the team engaged in the pursuit of a vaccine. There are arguably too many minor characters included in the book and it is impossible to connect with them all, however I am in awe of the scope of the novel with the author considering everything from enforced evacuations to same-sex dating and managing changes in the labour market. Yet despite the very obvious trauma and the death toll it is the characters resilience and human nature’s ability to adapt that imbues the novel with a burgeoning sense of hope.

Although a great premise, from a personal point of view I struggled with the multiple perspectives the story was told from. Not aimed specifically at this book, it's something I've struggled with before.

I can’t help wondering how I might have reviewed this book if I wasn’t twelve months into an actual pandemic and I do honestly think I would have boon more positive. I’m more knowledgeable about how timescales work out and how people and governments react plus it failed somewhat for me on the science front Too many characters so never built up much feeling for any of them. Amused at the Scotland getting Independence though.

Thank you to netgalley.co.uk for giving me a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

When I requested this book, I didn't think of the title but I found a little funny when I realised what it was about given the pandemic we are living through right now. I feel because of the current pandemic, we will start to start to see a lot of novels like this one but I enjoyed this one. The storyline was interesting, this was the first book I have read that talked about men dying off, not women. Knowing that the author wrote this in 2018 makes it interesting because it is quite similar to what is going on now. I couldn't put it down.

I was absolutely blown away by this debut from Christina Sweeney-Baird and The End Of Men is definitely one of those books that will stay in my head for a long time to come. Written pre-Covid, this tale of a global pandemic systematically effecting the male population is so clever and so prescient that the boundaries of fact and fiction continually crossed over in my reading. The book is structured through the stories of an array of women from normal everyday people, to medical professionals, to researchers, to those working on vaccines, with each of their voices brilliantly well-defined throughout. It was impossible to not make a personal connection with at least some of these women experiencing either the loss of the men in their lives, or those becoming empowered in their own right without male influence. It’s fair to say that the reader will experience a gamut of emotions in the course of this book as it ebbs and flows from extreme emotion and poignancy to the world of cold hard facts and the development of a global cure for this decimating virus. Having recently read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, I was extremely taken with the way that Sweeney-Baird begins to structure her world where women move into the foreground of previously very male dominated institutions and employment. She demonstrates clearly in this novel how the world does indeed march to the will of men from politics, to academia, to very normal everyday things as the designs of simple objects that work for men only. Beautifully researched and a totally absorbing rendition of a fictional world that now in the light of current times doesn’t seem that far from reality. Highly recommended.

Written pre-covid, but clearly edited during it (which in many ways adds to the 'a-ha' tension and a couple of laughs, including,a nice little joke about the 'typical' delay time for planes in 2020), The End of Men is arresting from the off, but very quickly settles into exactly the same territory as The Power. This, I suspect, was entirely the point at time of writing - Alderman's novel one of the more successful to tap into the dystopian trend for shifts in sexual/political power in literature since The Handmaid's Tale got its new on-screen lease of life (and for which none other than Atwood provided mentorship for). Which means we're in pretty safe storytelling hands - but also meant that everything played out pretty much as expected, but also that parts of the novel read as if they're playing catch-up on what living through covid has shown as 'reality'.
I was fortunate to read an ARC, but this seriously, seriously needs careful copy-editing - the number of basic-to-serious errors in the text suggest how close to the wire the editing process has been on this book. Hope they're caught in subsequent proofs! 3.5 stars for me

Reading this book would make an impact in normal times: reading it in the middle of a pandemic was harrowing. But this didn't put me off, as I devoured this book. I couldn't put it down. It's beautifully written, and even though the narrative is split between multiple narrative voices, I was drawn in to their situation. What interested me most, though, was that although this novel has - justifiably - been compared to Naomi Alderman's The Power, in that it depicts a world in which women become the dominant gender, it takes a very different approach. Men in this novel are not generally depicted as oppressors or abusers, but as loving and loved husbands, fathers and children, and their loss is deeply felt. Indeed, as the active period of the pandemic is dealt with in the first third of the novel, the rest becomes a study of grief and recuperation, as Sweeny-Baird explores what it might be like if the experience of recent bereavement was universal. Although there are hints as the novel goes on that things have changed profoundly, in that society is now shaped around women in a way it has never been before, that doesn't cancel out the loss of so many loved ones. Overall, I though this book was well-written, sensitive and compelling, and I predict it's going to be a runaway bestseller when it's published. I certainly intend to buy copies for my friends (and I don't often say that about a book).

Ok I hated this. I requested it as an arc from NetGalley as, possibly controversially, I love pandemic books. This one, about a virus killing off all men intrigued me, but when I started listening I realised there wasn’t really anywhere they could or were taking it. Another thing, the book had what felt like 30 different perspectives and stories. I couldn’t keep up and so little was said about each one I felt I didn’t care about anyone. I really think the book should have focused on one or two of the characters with the strongest plot line and gone with that. This book just wasn’t for me.

This is stunningly good. Difficult to believe it was written before the current situation when it comes across as being fresh and topical. It is well written and gripping and the writer makes good use of multi-viewpoint characters to tell the tale. I enjoyed it very much.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

As the author says in the Author’s Note that introduces this prescient novel (written in 2018-19) “I know you’re meant to live your truth through art and everything, but contracting Coronavirus was a step towards authenticity I could have done without”

The novel starts in late 2025 – a Scottish based A&E Consultant Amanda suddenly comes to the horrifying realisation that some form of highly fatal and highly deadly contagious infection (starting with “Patient Zero” from the Isle of Bute) is sweeping through those the patients (but only the male) patients visiting her hospital. Her rather panicked emails to the Scottish Health authorities are dismissed as an overreaction to a run of flu and sepsis cases. Only 5 days later the disease is being seen as “The Plague” even in London – and after 10+ days it has already killed 5000+ in England and quickly begins to sweep the world as any travel restrictions are imposed far too late.

The plague affects only men – but with them its effects are terrible: 91% fatality rates after only a few days of infection (regardless of their age or ethnicity) and with a huge infection rate, made much worse by women being not just asymptomatic carriers (but being infected extremely easily and then carrying the infection seemingly indefinitely). Studying viral pandemics one of the limiting factors on them is normally the trade-off between infectivity and fatality (in simple terms a virus that kills or even severely incapacitates its hosts is destroying its transmission vectors) – and the role of women here overcomes that trade off.

Efforts both to trace the cause of the male/female divide and to understand how the disease works and so develop a vaccine take time, by which point the world is effectively denuded of 90% of its men. Societal impacts are huge – women have to largely resign themselves to losing fathers, husbands, colleagues and sons and men to an almost inevitable death. Many previously male dominated jobs and areas (from refuse collection to science to politics) have to be rapidly re-imagined or restocked with a draft system on the female population. Different societies react in different ways to the need to produce and raise male children both before and after a vaccine is developed (including IVF lotteries – or effectively point scoring choices, compulsory C-sections and forced seizure of babies – boys left to see if they die, the remaining ones then taken away to safety, mandatory child rearing pools). Sexuality changes (same sex dating apps for women, convulsions to the Transgender community as differences become faultlines). And politically countries are changed – Scotland (in a rather nice Brexit analogy) picks seemingly the worse time for independence, but unlike in Brexit reaps catastrophic vaccine access results, Canada develops and aggressively licenses the only available vaccine and rapidly becomes a world power and the fall of the male dominated Communist Party leads to a series of convulsions in China which eventually breaks into 12 independent states.

At times the book cannot I think make up its mind if society has undergone complete breakdown or is carrying on as largely as normal as possible (albeit with a terrible sense of loss) and I am unsure, in either event, that nuclear families with an immune husband and immune sons or daughters would be able to carry on quite so obliviously to the pain of others (or without society forcing for example mass sperm donation or some form of surrogacy).

The book is written in a series of first party point of view accounts by a group of characters that include: Amanda (who remains an activist for the disease – both uncovering the slow actions that lead to its spread and tracing its origins to the smuggling of animals); Catherine – a Social Anthropologist (who partly serves the book as an example of a wife and mother of a son having to deal with the Plague and then as a documenter of the impact on other); a young American virologist who comes to the UK and ends up hugely influential; a near retirement black female and hitherto marginalised UK intelligence officer who rapidly rises through the ranks; an essay style journalist at the Washington Post who documents some of the key developments and personalities of the new era; the hugely ambitious Canadian researcher who develops the Vaccine and then demands both extreme monetary reward and recognition for making it available.

Unfortunately this is not a book where it is best to dwell on either the science or on the scientific abilities of the book’s participants. The male/female divide is critical to the virus’s success and of course to the very title of the book – but its mechanism rests on a rather shaky understanding of how X-Y chromosomes operate (the book’s explanation of the 91% fatality rate in men would lead I think to 83% fatality in women – not the 0% the book argues) – it is also odd that it takes 50+ days for someone to make the Y-chromosome link as a cause. It seems shall we say more than odd that hospitals cannot identify the sex of a baby until after its born (given how crucial it is) and equally so that a vaccine that is “only” 96% effective against a disease with 90% fatality is sent back for further trials.

And this probably gets to one of the more interesting parts of this book – its topicality will of course ensure high publicity and sales but will also mean that readers will come to it with a far more informed and critical eye than would otherwise have been the case.

But overall an interesting read which I am sure will draw a wide audience – and far from being depressing in the current time will I think make people think how much worse things could have been.

My thanks to Harper Collins UK for an ARC via Net Galley

I have become obsessed with dystopian and pandemic fiction over the last year (for obvious reasons) and so I was very excited to receive an Advanced Review Copy of The End of Men via NetGalley.

The End of Men follows a pandemic that originates in Scotland, and only affects men. Dr Amanda MacLean treats 'Patient Zero' in A&E and is quick to alert Health Protection Scotland, but is dismissed as a "stark raving lunatic." By the time she is listened to, it's too late, and it has become a global disaster. Just 1 in 10 men survive the virus, with some being naturally immune and others getting ill but managing to survive.

The story is told from various points of view of the women who are left behind. Some we meet just once, while others we hear from as the virus progresses and society changes. Amanda Maclean is one of the main characters, along with Dawn, a black woman working for the British Intelligence Service who had been hoping to retire in six weeks, Catherine, an anthropologist who is married with a young son, and Lisa, Professor of Virology at the University of Toronto.

I really liked the way that this story is told — the different perspectives are really great and it really helps to hit home about the implications of a virus that only hits men (and the unfairness of it all). For example, a woman who is subject to domestic violence is frustrated that her husband appears to be the only man in her small town who is immune. Or the number of fields that are male-dominated such as rubbish collection, the police, the army, fire services, paramedics and even politics. We get some insight into how other countries manage the sudden staff-shortages that could cause further health risks — as well as the way that some countries decide to handle newborn male babies.

Not only that, but five years post-virus, the changes this has caused to society and everyday items were eye-opening. For example, all cars must be updated with safety features that have actually been tested on women (did you know that there are no crash test dummies that represent the average female used when testing car safety?) and the latest iPhone is smaller and more ergodynamic for female hands. A surviving man complains at a dinner party about how he can't go anywhere without being hit on by women, despite wearing a wedding ring. And: "for the first time in the history of the world, women are fully in control of the way our stories are told." These were things I hadn't thought about or even realised (I have 'Invisible Women' on my list next, as I feel like this will be the perfect companion read). I was really impressed that the author had considered so many aspects when writing and researching this book.

I really liked the way that loss and grief is portrayed — the loss of so many brothers, husbands and sons. She conveys all of the mixed feelings that entails, such as jealously for those whose loved ones were immune. I also liked that the impact on the surviving gay men and LGBTQ community was discussed, although not in as much detail as I would have liked. There's also a sense of loss for the previous way of life — going to bars and clubs has changed forever, and children will never know what it was like to live in a male-dominated world. It was an interesting contrast between the grief of ordinary people and the medical side of the virus, as scientists struggled to find a vaccine.

The End of Men was a great read! It's a fantastic debut novel that's perfect to read during the pandemic, and I finished it in one sitting. It's incredibly thought-provoking, which I hadn't expected when I initially requested this book. One line that has also really stuck with me is: "If there is one thing I learnt from the many weeks I spent with men and women, discussing the Plague, it is that we did the best we could with what we knew at the time. I did my best in the most awful of circumstances. The past has been painful, but that doesn't mean the future can't be better." I feel that this is a really poignant sentiment for our current times. If you are looking for a good pandemic fiction, I'd definitely recommend this!

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(This will be going live on my blog at 6am on 16th February.)

The year is 2025, and a mysterious virus has broken out in Scotland--a lethal illness that seems to affect only men. When Dr. Amanda MacLean reports this phenomenon, she is dismissed as hysterical. By the time her warning is heeded, it is too late. The virus becomes a global pandemic--and a political one. The victims are all men. The world becomes alien--a women's world.

What follows is the immersive account of the women who have been left to deal with the virus's consequences, told through first-person narratives. Dr. MacLean; Catherine, a social historian determined to document the human stories behind the "male plague;" intelligence analyst Dawn, tasked with helping the government forge a new society; and Elizabeth, one of many scientists desperately working to develop a vaccine. Through these women and others, we see the uncountable ways the absence of men has changed society, from the personal--the loss of husbands and sons--to the political--the changes in the workforce, fertility and the meaning of family.

When reading the synopsis of this book, I thought that this was a novel that sounded original and something that I would enjoy reading.

I did enjoy this book and thought it was original. I do think it hit a bit close to home at the moment being in a global pandemic and for that reason alone, I have not awarded it five stars. But the book is very original and perfect for any sci fi fans.