Society has collapsed and anarchy is rife. So Miranda takes her daughter to the only safe place she knows, Femlandia, a female utopia set up by her mother. However she finds it is not the sanctaury and safe place that it is supposed to be, with many dark secrets. Miranda is no hero, and is unwilling to accept anything this community wants to offer, so it is hardly surprising she wants to break it apart. At the end, the plot could have been great, but Miranda ruins it

Just wow! What a book. (I listened to the audio book which I thought was read brilliantly by Brittany Pressley and Cassandra Morris

Firstly some content warnings for child sexual assault, murder, violence, child loss, child neglect, transphobia.

This is a very challenging subject/read and it feels weird to say I loved it because it is so dark and grim but it really made me think about both what would happen in the event of global economic collapse (which we are really only a hare's breath away from) and also the ethical and moral dilemmas both that and somewhere like Femlandia would throw up.

I have heard some people say this book is anti feminism but I don't agree. I think it is anti extremism. It is after all extreme feminist who are the most anti trans people I know, just as it is extreme feminism that lurches into misandry which is essentially what this book confronts us with.

This book is not a light read. If you are looking for women overcoming adversity this is only partly that. It is gritty, dark and some parts of it make for very grim reading but wow can this author write.

This is my first Christina Dalcher novel but I am definitely going to read her other work and if it is anything like this then I think she will be definitely become an auto-buy author for me.

I like Christina Dalcher as a writer, I’ve read her previous work and have been shocked and moved by them. Femlandia doesn’t disappoint, there’s a feeling of inevitability that the tables have turned in this community, have they taken it too far. I had mixed feelings about the enigmatic ending, but a good read.

Absolutely ridiculous book, couldn't finish it. The characters were irritating, the story has been done to death and often much better.

I've loved Christina Dalcher's previous novels (Vox and Q) so I was eager to read her third novel, Femlandia. It is exactly what it sounds like: feminist dystopian fiction and although I enjoyed it and it raises many topics for discussion, I didn't love it as much as Dalcher's previous novels.

Femlandia is the brainchild of renowned feminist Win Somers: a sanctuary for women with several location across America. When the country's economy collapses, the only safe place is self-sufficient Femlandia so Miranda Reynolds and her daughter make their way there. It may sound like a theme park but scratch the surface and it's more cult than community.

The story is reasonably fast-paced and intriguing as Miranda discovers more about Femlandia and her own secrets are revealed. I don't want to reveal too much as it would spoil it for others, but there are a few surprises that kept me interested and entertained.

Chilling and incredibly thought-provoking, Femlandia is a shocking and terrifying read that I have continued to think about and discuss long after turning the final page.

I chose to read a digital ARC via NetGalley and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for an ecopy of Femlandia in exchange for an honest review. I really liked the idea behind this book and the world created as the backdrop for the events at Femlandia. However I thought the child sex abuse that took place at Femlandia was unnecessary and I didn't enjoy that twist at all.

Absolutely loved this new book from Christina Dalcher. Another great dystopia with a feminist slant. It really made me think about the issues raised and how one person's dream is another's nightmare

I enjoy feminist dystopia, and loved Vox by the same author. This was a gripping read, disturbing on many levels yet I couldn't put it down and was desperate to discover the ending. Extreme on many levels, yet so convincingly possible in the post pandemic times.

What would happen if women ruled the world?

We meet Miranda and her sixteen-year-old daughter fighting for survival in a now dystopian America. After an economic crash and has descended into chaos. With barely any money and being forced out of their house, Miranda and Emma must find somewhere safe to go to. Being outside after dark is dangerous, and there are no shelters with space to take them. They decide to go to Femlandia, a female-only commune and “paradise.”

Well, this book is disturbing and is not one for the fainthearted. There are many scenes that will leave the reader uncomfortable and almost sick. Christina Dalcher takes the idea of a woman-led environment to the extreme, and while thought-provoking at times, overall it is gruesome. To me, the women and their society came across as cult-like. The fanatism and extremism of their views are distressing, and there is no hint of equality between the sexes.

To be honest, I didn’t quite care for the characters. Miranda bored me, I felt it tiresome to read through her point of view. I understand that we need to learn her history and her previous life of glamour and wealth. But there were things that happened in her past that I felt would have shaped her character differently than how she was portrayed. I also would have loved to hear more from the other characters such as Emma, Sal, and Nell.

There are things that I question about this book, and it’s very difficult for me to put them into words. There are things in this book that don’t sit right with me, even the concept of this book, and maybe I might be on my own about that.

*Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault, Abuse, Violence, Suicide, Gore.
*I'm editing this review after a lot of thought. I have thought about this book many times since I read it, and not positively. Seeing it in shops has made me feel angry and upset. Looking back on my review I was a little vague, probably due to being in shock after reading it and it's taken me some time to get my thoughts in order.

I would not recommend this book. I found it to be very traumatic and damaging. It is supposed to take a look at extremism, but it falls short. If anything this book will probably be lauded as why feminism is dangerous. As someone who believes in equal rights and feminism this did not align with my personal beliefs in any way, and I believe that would be the case for may other readers.

This book features many transphobic comments. I will not quote them here as they are in other reviews, but they are offensive and should not have been included. Many comments or ideas in this book align with transphobic rhetoric and I am appalled that it was included in this book. I was upset reading it, and I could not imagine how upsetting it would be for other people to read and to feel excluded and villainized by this book.

Femlandia...... A self sufficient haven for women who want to live a life free from men...

America is in ruins and our protagonist Miranda has no home, no job and no husband, Femlandia is her last resort but is this really the safe haven it's proclaimed to be..

I've only become a fan of dystopian fiction in the past year and now i can say i'm a convert! This definitely has The Handmaid's Tale vibes . It's gripping and disturbing yet somewhat plausible and it gives the reader A LOT of food for thought. I won't say much about the plot but it's very well written and clever , a bit of a slow burner but once you get into it you will be engrossed with what is happening. If you're a fan of dystopian add this to your lost now !

Close to home, dark, chilling and another excellent gender-centred dystopia.

A little bit of The Road, and a large dollop of Dalcher's female-centred near-future hellish situations.

She always manages to make me shut the pages and give thanks for the imperfect yet vastly superior present to the one she vividly brings to life.

This slightly more complex story begins with the fairly swift collapse of society, a novel in itself, but puts within this the mother (Miranda) and daughter (and also the THEME of mothers and daughters) fighting to find somewhere safe as the world tears itself to pieces around them as the economy implodes.

And the only option? The cultish woman-only refuge of Femlandia, created by Miranda's cold, tour-de-force of a mother decades before. Which has its own rules, hierarchy and politics. And of course secrets.

Oh so dark, I listened to this as an audiobook and was chilled with the turns the story takes, it reminded me of how I felt reading Naomi Alderman's The Power, what can happen when there is a large gender imbalance, what humans can be capable of.

But. You can't deny the author's methods of drawing in a reader, of consuming them in a frightening world and narrative, and toying with their emotions... she's now a favourite of mine.

This won't give you many chuckles (though there is dark humour here in spades), but it's thrilling and scary stuff. Insightful, deep and surely bound for a screen some time soon?

I audio-read a lot of this, and the voice of Miranda, youthful enough yet motherly and strong suited the first person voice, I wanted to continue listening long past the end of each chapter. Easy to follow as an audio-read, and the additional narratives from other characters added background and slowed things down for context, leaving me wanting to know more of what was happening.

Come on men, don't just leave these titles for women - I want to talk about them with you!

With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy, and the publisher for the Netgalley reading copy.

I had to really sit with my thoughts about when I finished this book before I decided to put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keys in this case. I really needed to process everything I had just read because quite frankly, this was heavy. It was brilliant but I’m not yet ready to write down review as I need to sit with it a little while longer whilst I process. This book is an eye opener and amazingly written.

The idea behind this book was an interesting one, a world without men? Sounds good to me. But there was something within the storyline that I found it really hard to connect and click with. It's like there was something missing. Maybe it was the connection with the characters or just needing some more oomph injected into it.
I have enjoyed reading the authors previous works and so I was looking forward to this one but I feel like she might have missed out a few pages with this one.

I don't think I can say I enjoyed it so much as found it a really powerful narrative. It bordered on uncomfortable at times, but I found the meaning behind the story so strongly portrayed.

What makes the novel remarkable is the constant reminder that we are not so very far away from such a reality. The flashbacks serve to remind us just how close we are, and consequently how dangerous some radical concepts of feminism and ideas for 'utopia' can be.

The story is controversial, and the characters aren't particularly likeable. However, the book has IMPACT.

I really enjoyed Femlandia. I found parts of the book shocking but also found myself comparing to things in real life currently. I enjoyed Vox and Q so was really looking forward to this and it did not disappoint. There were some really shocking parts which did knock me sick and thought that should never ever happen, I hope it never does. There are some triggering topics such as rape, incest and violence.
If you love dystopian, being shocked and wondering “oh my goodness will this ever happen” then this is the book for you.

I loved Vox and Q by the same author and enjoyed Femlandia, but it did not wow me in the same way that the previous books did. The premise is exciting, and I can still visualise the world created in the book, but the characters were uninspiring. Overall I was disappointed, as this should have been amazing.

A quote from Bertrand Russell at the beginning of the book reads: 'Every movement goes too far' and this is a just summary of Femlandia. A place for women, safe from the abuses of men.

For Miranda, Femlandia is the last place she would ever want to find herself. But with America in economic ruins, with food rapidly running out and nowhere else to turn to, her and her 16 year old daughter Emma begin the long walk to one of the Femlandia camps. Miranda knows more about the co-founder of Femlandia than anyone else - for it all began with her mother Win and ex best friend Jen Jones. Two women she has good reason to hate.

When Miranda and Emma arrive, it isn't long before the brainwashing of Emma begins. But Miranda knows all is not what it seems, and she will stop at nothing to prove it.

A brilliantly written, pacy and intelligent book, Femlandia asks uncomfortable questions and would make a really good book group choice. I really loved it for its originality and thought provoking subject matter.

I spent over a month trying to force my way through this book and unfortunately I just couldn’t bring myself to go any further. While I was interested in the premise, I felt that it took a long time to start getting to the crux of the matter. The characters lacked substance and I didn’t find them compelling or sympathetic. This feels like a very dry, surface-level exploration of a very concerning topic that requires a lot of thought and sensitivity. Additionally, I made the mistake of checking the reviews for this book and learned the big plot twist. That isn’t the book’s fault, but having learned it, I had absolutely no desire to read further and see all of that play out. It sounded sickening and from what I’ve read so far, I felt it would be gratuitous and did not trust the author to handle such a harrowing situation with the nuance, sensitivity, or seriousness it deserved.

Frankly, this book made my skin crawl, which I do think was the point, but I couldn’t come up with any worthwhile reason to keep pushing through with it.

DNF @ 36%

Rating: ⭐️
Rage rating: ❌❌❌
CW: violence, murder, death, sexual abuse, men phobia, transphobia

Disappointingly shallow, this dystopia is very expected and wasn’t what I hoped for.

In an alternate near future, the world is crumbling, and nowhere is safe for Miranda and her teenage daughter Emma… except Femlandia, a women-only colony established by Win, Miranda’s mother. But this newfound haven isn’t as safe as it appears.

Sadly I found this book extremely average, I expected so much more and I’m annoyed at the way the story unfolded. I just felt uncomfortable throughout the read.

In previous books from the same author, I was already disturbed by the strong anti-men feeling emanating from main character, but this book just reached a new high.

As usual for Christina Dalcher, the concept is interesting: I always find she has great ideas for dystopias. However in this book, the delivery is weak.

Important aspects of the book are glazed over and replaced by long descriptions of very little importance. The characters have no credibility, the psychological aspect is non existent. The resolutions of book-long conflicts are solved by a single sentence “it took time for X to realise their mistake”. Seemed a little easy.

I'm sorry to say that this book was not for me. Between the misandristic villains of the story and a MC who seems to believe inequality & discrimination don't exist, it was really difficult for me to empathize with any of the characters in this book.

I disliked a lot that the concept of what is called "Femlandia" is portrayed as a feminist post-apocalyptic reality, and yet, it's nothing but a misandrist cult (which I feel it propagates the misconceptions around feminism, just because of the way the concept is framed, but that's another topic).

At some point, as much as it's obvious to hate the villainous cult, it's also difficult to root for Miranda, the MC that is supposed to save the day. In fact, it often feels Miranda dismisses the other women's experiences, which often makes her a dislikable character, and also makes this book everything except feminist. In Miranda's head, there are, of course, both bad and good people regardless of the gender, but everything else is disregarded, as if we all have the same opportunities in life and it doesn't matter who you are nor where you come from — more about having bad luck for finding awful people in your life? (or is this part of the utopia?) Let's not even start talking about how this book approaches gender. It felt like trans here was only mentioned in order to tick some sort of checklist, because it's quickly dismissed to never be mentioned again.

Because of all of the inconsistencies in the story and in the characters' development, it's very difficult to understand what is the lesson and moral we're supposed to get from the story. Plot wise, it's predictable, there's not much to find once the grim details of Femlandia are revealed, and we kind of know already how the book will end.

It's not even clear if the author meant for the reader to side with anyone at all. No one will want to side with a misandrist cult, but will we want to side with someone who's unaware of her own privilege?