Nomansland: Review

Synopsis: Sometime in the future, a lonely, windswept island is populated solely by women. Among these women is a group of teenaged Trackers—expert equestrians and archers—whose job is to protect their shores from the enemy. The enemy, they’ve been told, is men. When these girls come upon a partially buried home from the distant past, they are fascinated by the strange objects—high-heeled shoes, teen magazines, make-up—found there. What are they to make of these mysterious things? And what does it mean for their strict society where friendship is forbidden and rules must be obeyed—at all costs?

Details: "Nomansland" by Lesley Hauge, 256 pages, 3.47 stars on Goodreads.

My Thoughts: I've been excited to read this since I first read a review of it, and I wasn't disappointed at all! Even though I was getting a bit tired of dystopians, the idea of a society completely made up of women was fascinating. When I was a kid, I read this book about the Amazons and thought it was really neat (despite the fact that there was an incredible amount of gore), and this book sort of reminded me of that. Except there wasn't a lot of gore in Nomansland, luckily. 


Life in Foundland is fascinating. No one is allowed to have a fancy first name, or have hair longer than a certain length, or wear anything designed to look nice or flattering. There are strict rules regarding the "Seven Pitfalls" (things like vanity), and the society was basically feminism to the extreme. Men were referred to as the enemy, and many of the girls and women believed that men are dangerous. If you're wondering, women got pregnant by artificial insemination, but what was interesting was how horrifying pregnancy was. First, there's the fact that being artificially inseminated isn't really all that fun, and since the women don't get to keep the baby in the end, they have none of the motherly love that makes pregnancy worth it for modern-day women. 


Keller is a multi-dimensional character, and throughout the book I admired her strength. She struggles to do the right thing, but that can be so hard when everything is confusing and you don't know who's good and who's not. I felt at times she could a little apathetic to what was going on, but overall, I definitely liked her.


The only thing I didn't like so much about Nomansland was that after I finished it, I still wanted to know more. Why, for example, did the genders separate in the first place? How long has it been since the Time Before? Who came up with the Seven Pitfalls? Other than that, this was a great book, and absolutely worth a read! 4 smilies out of 5.