Femlandia is another amazing, chilling and thought provoking read from this talented author. It’s going to be a difficult book to review as I don’t want to give anything away.

Firstly I thought this author does a great job with the world building with the post apocalyptic world of Femlandia seeming very realistic which helps add to the sinister undertones in this book. The reader soon becomes aware that all is not as perfect as the leaders would like the residents to believe. When Miranda and her daughter Emma first join the community they are quickly given a long list of rules and expectations they have to follow which residents are punished for breaking . The residents, some of whom Miranda knows from her previous life, seem completely ok with all that is happening there. However there are some who aren’t happy with their lives there who firmly support Miranda in her quest to discover the truth about what’s going on on Femlandia.

The characters were interesting creations who I found very interesting to follow throughout the book. I liked that the author took the two ‘normal’ female stereotypes; one of a girly girl who liked playing with dolls and wearing dresses and an independent strong women who doesn’t need a man to survive and smudges the line between them showing that it is possible for women to be a bit of both. Miranda especially quickly shows that she has much more about her then the lady who lunched her mother dismissed her as when she created her female only community. I found Jen a very sinister character who I loved to hate. From the first mention of her I thought there was something very off about her. Her willingness to step into Miranda’s shoes as her mum’s surrogate daughter, the way she stamps her authority on Femlandia and the way she steals Emma from Miranda all had alarm bells going off in my head. I had to keep reading to find out what would happen and which side would win.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and read it very quickly as I found it very hard to put down. There was always something happening and the gradual build up of tension made this book very gripping. The ending,a massive showdown between Miranda and Jen, was brilliantly done and kept me guessing who would win until the end.

Huge thanks to HQ stories for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book via netgalley. I think this would make a great book club read as I can imagine it creating a lot lively discussion.

The protagonist in this book is Miranda, and the story is mostly told from her perspective. Miranda is a mother and a woman who didn’t have to do much in her life, her husband was taking care of her quite well until the world fell apart after the financial crisis. Since then she is on her own with her teenage daughter trying to survive in a very unwelcoming world. Miranda grew up listening to her mother’s speeches about how horrible men are, but she did not give in to her mother’s ideologies. Miranda’s mother is sharing her story as well, and I really could not blame her for cursing men kind, because she got nothing but pain and abuse from them. And I do understand the roots of her ideology. I can’t say I liked or connected to any of the characters, they are all flawed in their own way, but it was interesting to observe these characters and their interactions.
The narrative is constantly battling between the men-hating side and the men supporting side (Miranda). Both of these sides provide a lot of interesting information that got me thinking and having discussions between two invisible people inside my head. :D
The beginning of the book was quite slow for me, so I was always eager to find out more. This book concentrates a lot on characters thoughts and experiences from their past and their present, and due to that the plot doesn’t really get very fast-paced or exciting, but there are some really interesting twists along the way. The topics discussed in this book were a financial crisis, survival, abuse against women and children, domestic violence, mother-daughter relations, early pregnancies, feminism, male hatred and many more.
The writing style did not disappoint me. The author knows how to create a brilliant dystopian world and I was always curious to find out more. I am very glad that the author incorporated her experience from linguistics studies into this book as well. <strong>There are some disturbing scenes described in this book related to violence against women and children that some readers might find disturbing.</strong> :( The chapters are pretty short and the pages just flew by for me. The ending was not surprising but it was a little disappointing for me.
So, to conclude, I found this book very intriguing. I really enjoyed the general idea of this novel and the constant moral and emotional dilemma it brought out in me. Would you want a world without men? Would you want a place run only by women, where everything is adjusted to women and not men, where decisions are made by women for women? I think I understood one thing while reading this book, that not all men are bad and not all women are good, and that some women need a safe space a little like Femlandia to heal their bodies and souls to be able to continue living… This world is still a hard place to be a woman, but it is getting better compared to what our grandmothers had to endure, and it will take a long time to change things, but we are getting there. ;) Do give this book a read, it is a thought-provoking book and I hope you will like it as much as I did. ;)

Having already read VOX by Dalcher a couple of years ago and loving it, I was so happy to be accepted for the book tour of Femlandia.

I struggled to get into the story at first as it was a bit confusing and though we get the general idea of some sort of economic crash, it doesn’t explicitly tell us what has happened for it to get to where it is today.
The storyline as a whole is intriguing but I felt that it was very predictable as unfortunately, most of the plot twists I managed to guess.
I did, however, like how the POV changed between Miranda and Win and the different time frames.

Femlandia - it’s a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me.
Overall, I don’t think this is Dalcher’s best work, but it won’t put me off reading her future works. I’m also yet to read Q, and will happily do so at some point.

I really enjoyed this book. A great story of how people manage and adapt in difficult circumstances with really well-written characters. Highly recommended.

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.