Meg Elison has created a truly fantastic world with this series. It will forever sit on my shelf alongside Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Alice Hoffman's Dovekeepers. Elison questions the reality of gender, and what we know gender to be. She questions the boxes we're willing to confine ourselves to, and the reasons we accept those boxes. She's not just writing about Etta's world. She is writing about ours.

"Maybe you just show up one day and everyone thinks you’re part of a story that’s already happening and what you really think doesn’t matter. Maybe that’s what happened to the Unnamed. I wonder if she ever thought we’d be reading about her, years later, trying to be like her. Did she even want that?"

The Book of Etta is the second book in Meg Elison’s The Road to Nowhere series. It picks up about 100 years after the Unnamed Midwife arrived in Nowhere. In Nowhere, a woman is expected to be either a Mother or a Midwife and have a Hive of men to help repopulate humanity after a mysterious plague wiped out most of the population. However, Etta doesn’t want any of that; she is different. Instead, she is a raider – going out beyond the city to scavenge for old-world items of value as well as rescuing girls and women from the slave traders. When she comes across Estiel and a man who calls himself the Lion, she will be tested in new ways as she vows to save the women he has stolen.

There is a lot to unpack from this book, and so many interesting concepts – for example: gender norms, gender fluidity, racism, slavery, morality, and how different societies develop differently whilst in isolation from each other, etc. – but unfortunately, I couldn’t get over how much I disliked Etta/Eddy’s character. They were self-centered and stubborn with a rigid set of morality that was very black and white. Etta/Eddy saw the world in black and white – they were good, and slavers were bad; she was Etta at home, but he was Eddy on the road; Etta could become Eddy out of necessity, but anyone else’s gender fluidity was inexcusable; women were safe, and men were not. I know there was a reason their character was that way as they were suffering from a traumatic event in their past, and I appreciate what the author did with their character, but I was never able to muster much sympathy for them and so I couldn’t really get into the book as much as I would have liked.

However, I will mention that Flora was one of my favorite characters, and I can’t wait to follow her and learn more about her in the next book in the The Road to Nowhere series - The Book of Flora .

Thank you to NetGalley and 47North for a copy of this eBook in exchange for an honest review.

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife was such a fantastic story and probably one of my favorite books of all time. With such an amazing premise — an outbreak or plague of sorts that primarily affects women and, subsequently, their unborn children. Whatever the outbreak is, it’s passed directly to the fetus upon childbirth and nine times out of ten, kills both mother and child in the process. Although the sickness doesn’t discriminate, as there are plenty of men who came down with a fever, but they fared better than the women of this world. With 99% of women dead, you can just imagine the horrors that the remaining women face. A precious commodity at this point in time and many a men are willing to do whatever it takes to get a female, even more so in this desolate future.


“The Unnamed was Etta’s hero. Not as a Midwife, but as a survivor, a person who could be anything they had to be to survive.”


The Book of Etta continues the phenomenal storyline from the first book and shows what the world and the people have become 100 years after the outbreak. And while this particular world is decades ahead of the first book, that doesn’t mean the world or its people have advanced. If anything, this world feels much older, with the people resorting to barbaric tendencies and societal practices that haven’t been in place for at least a few centuries (from modern times). And while the Unnamed Midwife is long dead, her ideals and her vision for what this new world should be are still very much alive, and she’s very much still a prominent character and one that Etta and the rest of Nowhere still consult through the journals and the stories she shared.

Etta works as a traveler going to various places to gather supplies for Nowhere. Through her travels, she learns that Nowhere isn’t the only community left. There are others, many others, and some are downright brutal. The one thing these outside communities have in common, aside from a robust male population, is they’re all under the thumb of The Lion. The leader of Estiel, which is where no one wants to end up. For as cruel as this new world is, the cruelty starts and ends in Estiel and Etta has firsthand knowledge of that.

The Book of Etta isn’t a fun book. It’s harsh, it’s bleak, it’s filled with horrors from cover to cover. But the characters, particularly Etta, have a spirit and a will to survive that makes for a little brightness in such a dark book. Etta is a character that everyone can root for and everyone will love, and I really liked the storyline surrounding her sexuality and her journey in discovering who, exactly, she is. Although I’m loathe to use “she”, because she doesn’t fit. Neither does “he”, as Etta/Eddy is, for all intents and purposes, a wonderfully gender-fluid character who is neither she nor he. Although those pronouns do fit on occasions, but Etta isn’t a character defined by he or she.

Bottom line — this series is a must-read. There are so many themes and so many issues of importance that it provides food for thought long after turning the last page. But don’t be swayed — there’s one hell of a horror story to go along with said themes, so it’s a win all-around. Highly recommended and I can’t wait to see what Ellison brings readers in the third and final book of this trilogy, The Book of Flora.

*eARC received via NetGalley.

The entire Road to Nowhere trilogy is a meditation on gender roles and gender fluidity disguised as a fast-paced post-apocalyptic survival adventure. Each book focuses on one person who has to learn to survive in a society where the rules don't let them be who they are.

In this book, set about six generations after the Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Etta spends as much time as possible outside the town of Nowhere. Her profession is raider- she scouts out places and people and gets pre-collapse supplies or rescues young girls from slavers. Etta has made a bargain with herself that once she goes out, she won't return until she has rescued a girl.

Estiel (St. Louis, get it?) is the horrible metropolis off in the distance, but still a factor in the lives of those who live in Nowhere. Etta has been there once, and she claims to her friends and family in Nowhere that she goes there on raids, but the reality is that she scrounges around the countryside. She's not able to return to the place because the Lion of Estiel has made the city his base of operations, and his Lion's Paws are the worst slavers and raiders that she has ever met. Etta keeps a trauma that she experienced due to the Lion's Paws buried deep. The Biblical, larger than life feel of the Lion of Estiel and his minions is making some sort of statement about religion and gender roles, I'm sure.

Etta is also gender-fluid. Her alter ego is Eddy, who only really comes out when she is away from Nowhere. While Eddy is who Etta is most comfortable being, due to her obligations and societal strictures in Nowhere, she can't be him there. Nor can she be open about her love for women, specifically her friend Alice, the doctor and pharmacist for Nowhere. Alice isn't interested in being exclusive, and Etta/Eddy needs that from her lover.

Etta/Eddy is an extremely interesting character. Hard headed, idealistic, closed-off, with a will of iron that has enabled them to survive, but the author implies late in the book that Eddy was born from trauma and that he is almost part of a dissociative personality of Etta's. Etta has been through horrible trauma and I can see how it would cause dissociation, but I would assume that the author isn't implying that gender fluidity is born through trauma and can't be a person's identity unless they needed to "split" for some reason? I hope so, anyway.

Each of these books is a travelogue. Eddy travels to a city of "horsewomen" where he meets Flora, who is the author of the third book of this series. You'll probably figure out long before Eddy did that Flora has some secrets of her own. For someone struggling so much with his own identity, Eddy isn't very kind to poor Flora. Eddy also goes to Manhattan/Womanhattan, KS, which I was tickled by because I lived in Manhattan for a while myself. In this book, the city has split into two, one for men and one for women. Each town in this series has found its own unique way to deal with sex and gender. Later, Eddy comes across a hidden city populated by Mormons. This city is a bit different than the one in Unnamed Midwife, and there seems to be some sort of magic developing in this world, a bit like the Emberverse by S.M Stirling.

In the end, Eddy/Etta have to rescue their family and friends and all of their grit and heroism must come into play in order for this to happen. This book works on two levels- the exploration of this strange new world, which I enjoyed tremendously, and the exploration of gender, done through memorable, flawed and fascinating characters. Eddy isn't always likable and is frankly a pain in the ass to those who care about him, because he cannot compromise morally. That makes him a hero, but it also shows just how hard heroes are to live with. Etta/Eddy isn't very good at writing in the book that all residents of Nowhere must create (in honor of the Unnamed Midwife) and this shows how difficult they find it to be open and themselves, even on the page.

“The Unnamed Midwife had been a founder in Nowhere. She had been from the old world, a trained nurse and Midwife who had lived through the dying and seen how it all came down. She had left behind her journals, which told the whole story—her own as well as the world’s. It was known by every man, woman, and child in Nowhere. They kept their own journals as a way to carry on her work.”

I read over one-hundred books in 2016, but the predecessor to this book, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, was my favorite of them all. And even though that’s one of the most powerful books I’ve still ever read in my entire life, it’s also one of the heaviest books I’ve ever read. So, I’ve been putting off this second installment for far too long. But, friends, I finally picked it up and I’m so happy that I did. But again, as much as this book was also powerful, it’s also so very heartbreaking.

In The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, 98% of Earth's population of men and 99% of Earth's population of women have died from an autoimmune disease. Even though most of the Earth's population was wiped out, the ratio of men to women is immense. And even in the future from the initial outbreak, women are still the most sought-after thing. In this second installment, the timeline is many generations in the future (approximately one-hundred-years), but we get to the community that the unnamed midwife helped build. This current community has adapted so many of the things that we saw in The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, and we get to see that not a lot has changed in this post-apocalyptic world.

“I’m Eddy on the road, and I’m Etta at home. I’m both.”

And we follow Etta when she is with her community, Nowhere, and we follow Eddy when he is scavenging outside of his community. I am going to use they/them pronouns for the rest of this review, but I believe our main character is nonbinary and genderfluid, even though those words are never used on page. This entire book really puts gender at the front of this story, because Etta/Eddy doesn’t want to be what is expected of a woman in this world. They don’t want to become a mother, they don’t want to raise children, and they do not want to deliver babies. They want to hunt, and forage, and rescue girls that aren’t even given a choice in this new and cruel world. Also, Etta/Eddy is black and also sees how racism hasn’t ceased, even with the world almost ending.

“Boys can be anything. Girls can only be one thing.”

We also are introduced to a transwoman in this book who becomes such a pivotal character. Flora completely made my heart break in this book, but she was also such a bright beacon of hope. She honestly deserves the entire world, and she better be given it in the final book, The Book of Flora.

But we get to see Etta/Eddy travel to different communities from their own and see how the different groups and people live and prosper. Some treat women lower than currency, some treat them like mystical saints, but we get to see all the in-betweens, too. Etta/Eddy meets Flora rather quickly, and they soon travel together to the worst city Etta/Eddy may have seen yet. When they reach the stronghold of the Lion, they aren’t entirely sure what to expect. But even their nightmares wouldn’t prepare them for what this tyrant ruler is truly like.

This is a very dark and heavy book. Please use caution before reading and make sure you are in a safe headspace. Major content and trigger warnings for rape, sexual assault, genital mutilation, pedophilia, sex trafficking, slavery, murder, death, loss of a loved one, miscarrying, torture, misgendering, racist comments, misogynistic comments, abduction, captivity, violence, animal death, and war themes.

“On the map, all the roads led to Estiel.”

Overall, Meg Elison writes the queer, feminist, inclusionary literature of my heart. This book is important, and powerful, and empowering. It’s hard, and brutal, and heartbreaking, but I promise it is so rewarding. The reason I am giving it four stars is because the ending felt rushed to me. And even though I loved this entire ending with the soul of my being, it just happened in the blink of an eye. Yet, I am so excited to see where the next book picks up, because I am sort of obsessed with their location! But friends, if you are in the right headspace, please give The Book of the Unnamed Midwife a try. It’s truly a masterpiece, and this entire series means more to me than I have words for.

This was a great sequel to The Book Of The Unnamed Midwife! I loved the first book and was happy to see another was being published. Great effort on Meg Elison's part to continue her series in an original way. I thought the lead character was strong and very 3 dimensional. Thanks for the great read!

I liked this book in the series better than the first one which is unusual. Still a very rough dystopian world, but I'm not sure where we are going with this story in that it is not following the cliche story lines for current dystopian fiction and that is a good thing.

LOVED this book! I read it in one sitting. Even though the reader doesn't always agree with the main characters decisions, you can relate with her and totally understand her choices. LOVED this book.

I loved the first book in this series. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. I felt like it was a whole new take on the dystopian story world. I will say that normally I don't read many series and I shouldn't have picked this one up. I didn't hate it..I didn't love it either.

It picks up a hundred years from where the previous book left off. In the first book the Midwife lived through the plague that wiped out most of the world's women and all of the children. There has been some improvement made in the life expectancy of women in this one..but they still are being used as trade and slaves.
This book is Etta/Eddy's story. He is a raider who goes out to help rescue any women that need help and bring them back to his town named "Nowhere." He binds his breasts on the road and lives completely as Eddy. Once back home he has to become Etta again and try to fit into what the society there thinks she should.

Etta/Eddy does lots of roaming in this book. Picking up a "horsewoman" named Flora and bringing her home just opens up a whole new can of worms for Etta/Eddy.
As much as I loved the first book, this one just felt like it had already been done to death. I mean even this happens.
Complete with an evil bad guy named the "Lion."
The gender confusion that Eddy/Etta feels and some parts of the story do hold up well and this is not a horrible book at all. The whole judgement that I felt with being attracted to same sex people, black people still standing out and some of the authors world building in general are still quite good.
I actually might pick up the final one just to see the Mormon's win the day. (I hope they do.) They stood out in this book.
(It also looks like it is the "horsewoman" Flora's book. I'm betting it could get interesting.)

This review has probably confused the heck out of you if you haven't read the first book..and it's one that I do think you have to read before following up with this one. But they ain't bad.

This is one of those rare beasts, a sequel that is actually as good or better than the first volume. The Book of Etta is so well realized that you forget that it is fiction. It would be helpful to read "The Book of the Unnamed Midwife" first, but certainly not necessary. The Book of Etta is post-apolcalyptic with a cup of day-to-day grit and a gripping hero and heroine. Buy this book.

I received this ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

This is the second book in the Road to Nowhere trilogy which takes place 100 years later than book one. This people were much rougher and less caring than the first book, is their behavior supposed to be a natural evolution of time? Gender and sexual behavior was a big part of this book whereas the first book was more about surviving and creating a new society and way of life.

I'm done with the series.
2☆

Loved the first book in the series, this was not as strong, probably because the main character is not as strong as it was in the first.

This novel is the second of the Road to Nowhere series, and the sequel to the fantastic, original novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. Although it’s possible to read The Book of Etta on its own, I think you would get much more out of the novel by reading them in order. In the first book, the Unnamed travels across the United States after a shocking epidemic has destroyed the world as we know it today. Most of the world’s population is gone, and of the survivors, only one in ten are female. Childbearing is extremely dangerous, and women are in high demand, although they are mostly objectified as slaves.

Etta’s story takes place about a century after the Unnamed Midwife finally settled in a former army barracks, now known as the village of Nowhere. The inhabitants of the village live in relative safety, and many of the women have been able to survive childbirth – in fact, being a Mother is the most valuable thing a woman can be, creating a sort of throwback to our own past. The Unnamed has become a folk hero for the villagers, although her story has been distorted over the years. Like her, everyone in Nowhere keeps a journal of their experiences in this new world – but Etta has a hard time writing about her life, because she has a secret.

Etta’s mother wants nothing more for her daughter than for her to reproduce and become honoured and valued as a Mother. However, Etta wants more from her life, so she works as a scavenger, exploring outside the city gates for extended periods of time. Like the Unnamed Midwife, Etta finds it easier to travel if she is disguised as a man – so when she is on the road, she becomes Eddy. The disguise is ostensibly for safety, but more importantly, Eddy is a transgender man who only feels like his true self when he’s on the road.

Eddy scavenges for supplies, but he also tries to rescue the young girls being held by slave traders – if he paid for them, it would encourage the trade to grow larger, so he takes the girls by force, and brings them back to join the community of Nowhere. At home, Eddy reverts to his role as Etta, but even then, she does not fit into the traditional female roles provided for her. She sneaks away to visit her girlfriend Alice – they must hide their relationship because women should be breeding with men. Even homosexuality between men is disallowed in Nowhere – the most important priority is to have children, and individual sexual preferences are strongly discouraged.

This novel explores the complexities of gender and sexuality against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world where women are commodities and men are either dangerous or disposable. It is a gritty, stark look at humanity, especially in light of the misogynistic political world we now live in. Etta’s world is very dark and certainly dystopian, but it also showcases several different communities that are attempting to forge a new path in this world. Although not all of them are successful – and some are brutal and shocking – there are elements of hope here too. Unlike in The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, there are no longer any ties to our world, but history – and the subjugation of women – is still repeating, making it feel depressingly like an inevitable part of humanity.

Once again, this second novel in the Road to Nowhere series is an imaginative, unpredictable story. It is filled with the kind of powerful writing that you can get completely caught up in, letting Etta’s world sometimes feel more real than our own. The third and possibly final book in this series will follow Flora, an unusual, passionate woman that Etta meets on her travels. With Flora’s story, I’m sure we will once again see a thoughtful exploration of gender identity in a world that is so different and yet eerily similar to our own. I can’t wait to read it.

I received this book from 47North Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I did not enjoy this as much as the first in the series, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. That book was great on its own, and really did not need a sequel. This book dealt with gender identity issues. Maybe my lack of understanding on this issue and my uncertainty of the author’s authority on the topic made it hard for me to connect to the main character. It also was hard to follow at times, contained more violence, and had a strange, almost supernatural element added near the end, all of which turned me off a little. I will read the last in the trilogy, when it’s published, because I’m curious how the author will resolve this story.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

If you read the first book that this continues from, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, there is already a (small) giveaway in the title, in that we know who the protagonist will be, their basic background, and a rough time frame of when this new book takes place, relative to the first. I don't feel that this takes away from the story at all though.

The author also hints throughout the book that Etta has lived through a traumatic rape experience, and while never gone through in explicit detail, it is referenced in several flashbacks. There are also several other instances of rape or implied rape in the book. However, if you've read the first book, this should not be surprising given the premise of the story.


Spoilers ahead:


While in Nowhere, Etta lives as a single woman and shows no interest in motherhood or men. Outside its gates is where Eddy lives, the raider from Nowhere who spends as much time outside the walls of their settlement, bringing back needed supplies and liberating whatever captive women found in this world in which most of the female population was decimated through a terrible plague. Over the course of the book, Eddy travels to several different settlements, looking for trade and meeting others. In one town, it seems as if the plague has mostly left them unaffected, as the disparity between men and women is much less pronounced. Eddy spends time trying to find the reason for this, and also grows close with Flora, a horsewoman of the town. Etta/Eddy does their best to avoid any instances in which their secret will be found out, but is also not afraid to put themselves into dangerous situations. Eddy comes to the forefront the most after discovering that their actions indirectly led to the total destruction of Nowhere and the abduction of every living female. Eddy decides on a course of action to single-handedly take down a tyrant and rescue the women of Nowhere.

The Book of Etta follows on the the events of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, some 100 years after humanity has been almost wiped out by a plague (~2% of the population remaining, of which 90% men and only 10% women; also, most women die in childbirth, with stillborns, even more often if the fetus is a girl). So there’s little wonder that most of the few remaining women have a very hard time getting by and must find ingenious ways to escape some very painful and degrading experiences. This is not a pleasant world to read about, on the contrary, but it’s a very real possibility for the presented circumstances, and that's what makes the book great.

The novel is written in third person, following the thoughts and actions of Etta (I really really liked the Etta/Eddy thing!), the people she meets, the ways the society adapted to the aftermaths of the plague (matriarchal / sexual subjugation, rotation of seed donors, hives, men who can claim paternity and men who aren't allowed, even monogamy in some rare cases).

The focus is on sexuality and gender issues, the novel being more of an identity quest than a survival one, oriented mainly towards world building, experiences and feelings rather than on the action itself.
Most of the handled topics are rather sensitive, but this is not a book for the faint-hearted, just like The Book of the Unnamed Midwife wasn’t either: gender roles, discrimination, sexuality and transgender issues, (gang) rape (of women, but also men), pedophily, sexual slavery, sequestration, beating, famine.

The characters are well written and humanized and the interactions between them are skillfully done. I especially liked that the main one was realistic and coolheaded and capable, but not too much so, also having not-so-good moments and being vulnerable and disheartened.

The only thing I didn’t like was that, even though the religion subject is barely touched upon throughout the book, towards the end some kind of supranatural Mormonism appears. Hopefully, the next and last (?) novel in the series won’t go on the slippery slope of mysticism..

Overall, a very good book, superbly written - an interesting and fast read, that I heartily recommend.

The Book of Etta is an unflinching examination of male control and female resistance, and a searching look at the concept of identity - in a world that tries to define everyone within a gender binary emphasised by female mortality. I think it's just as ground-breaking as Elison's debut The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (if not more so), but I suspect - sadly - that it will garner fewer adherents.

Elison peels away layers of world-building to develop her ideas - and conflicts - chapter by chapter, exploring implications and consequences as Etta/Eddy travels across the Midwest and encounters other communities. If I thought The Book of the Unnamed Midwife was unflinching, The Book of Etta rips away any hope for a better future. Civil discourse is a luxury that has perished in the ashes of the old world; so long as stashes of old world weapons remain to be discovered, those who have them can enforce their way of life. It's bleak reading, but (as in Midwife) I appreciate that Elison acknowledges that and has her protagonists struggle with the question of why they keep fighting.

While there's no doubting the feminism of Midwife, this loose sequel ups the ante, tackling reproductive rights and intersectional feminism head-on. For those more interested in story than politics, don't worry - it's a taut, nail-biting narrative with remarkable characters fighting to survive in a fascinatingly imbalanced world. However, for my money Etta isn't about who has the biggest guns and the will to wield them (although this is certainly a subplot) so much as whether the rights of the community trump the rights of the individual. While there are occasional explosive action sequences, Etta is an introspective novel.

Consequently, it's a book that merits reflection and rewards giving it some time to sink in - I have appreciated it more the more I have thought about it. I have a couple of concerns relating to the trans representation and Eddy's future, which I hope the announced sequel (The Book of Flora) will put to rest - I'm already excited to read it.

--I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are purely my own and not influenced in any way.--
I was a huge fan of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and eagerly looked forward to its sequel. Let me start by saying that the sequel is utterly unnecessary and not as cohesive as the original, but I devoured it and enjoyed it nonetheless.
Etta/Eddy is a badass raider who will do anything necessary to protect their people and save girls sold into sex slavery all while questioning their sexuality and gender identification. This was a downright fascinating angle to explore in a world where girls are either treated as gods because they can get pregnant or property for the same reasons. They had a rather brutal past and may not have always made the right decisions, but they knew exactly where their convictions lie and were a very rich and very human character. Everyone was doing what they could to survive this post-apocalyptic world, and what I'm coming to love about Meg Elison's books is that all of her characters are written humanly. They're flawed, irrational, and imperfect and that's what makes them such interesting characters. The world-building is pretty good (if a bit standard post-apocalyptic) but the interactions between people and the set-up of their societies are what makes her books interesting.
My few complaints are that this book kind of veered off a bit in the middle but ultimately rerailed in time for the conclusion and Elison's strengths as an author are absolutely on civilization-building and we didn't get as much of that as we did in Midwife, so it did stagnate a little bit. I feel like the ending might have happened a bit too fast, but what a way to end with a bang! Not too sure what the third book in this trilogy will be (I'm hoping it will pick up where it left off and have more world-building), but I'm looking forward to reading it!

[Disclaimer: I was sent a free e-copy of this book by NetGalley for review purposes.]

As soon as I finished this book I rushed to see if there was going to be a book 3. There is no way this could have been the end, not the way we're left with no answers. Yes, there will be a third (and final) book! Fantastic!

Just as the first book was, this one was brutal as well. Not as many dead children, but a lot more violence against women. So if you've read the first book and come through to the other side, you'll probably be OK with this one too. But if you have any violence/sexual trauma you are working through, I advise you to steer clear of this entire series. It's hard to read about even for someone who is not experiencing those things.

That said, this book was brilliant. It was similar to the first in some ways, but the lack of journal entries and more straight story was definitely a stylistic difference. I enjoyed it, but I missed Doc Jane's voice. Etta/Eddy comes around approximately 100 years after Doc Jane founded Nowhere (the end of the first book). In the village she is Etta. On the road, he is Eddy. The exploration of gender here was pretty interesting, because we find out about halfway through the book what made Eddy "come out" of Etta. Again, more violence. It's heartbreaking. And then we have other characters like Flora who bend genders and how that affects them. But when you think about what would happen in this world if less than 1% of women survived a plague, and kept delivering dead babies (and dying themselves in the process), can you imagine it would be much different? Would you expect mankind to just sit back and revere the survivors, letting them choose when and how to reproduce? Or would they all be clamoring for possession? The women in this series... They are the central characters. They are what the books are ABOUT. They are what LIFE in that world is about. But they are nothing, possessions, "breeding stock." The men argue it's to "repopulate." It's not about that. They know "their" women will die in childbirth. They do what they do to them anyway.

So then, where is the positive in all of this? We have Eddy, who rescues women like Doc Jane before him. He is the only one with the courage to do what he feels is necessary. And oh how satisfying when he finally does it!! We're left with a little bit of hope in the bleak, unforgiving last few chapters.

I can't say much about why I'm drawn to this series. It is hard to read, it makes me squeamish and heartsick. But the exploration of what it means to be human, what it means to be a woman, and how any individual in such a situation can do something for the good is fascinating. There's also the idea of what is right amid all the wrong, when you have to decide your own principles and how far you are willing to go to save one life. For all of this, I admire and appreciate these books.