I seriously wanted to like this book; I was looking forward to it but it was a huge letdown. In THE END OF MEN, a contagious disease sweeps the globe and men are rapidly dying; women are immune to the disease. Told from different female perspectives, the story unravels as top scientists try to find a cure and learn to cope with changes this disease has brought to the world.

This story is very reminiscent of what we experienced last year during the global pandemic. From having to quarantine to seeing families lose loved ones to global leaders scrambling to find a solution. Each female character presented showed a different view of what was happening as the disease spread. However, most of the female perspectives were of white women. I can only recall at least two characters that were women of color. Of course the white women are the scientists trying to find a cure for this disease and the women of color are nannies for the rich.

Also, for a book about a disease that kills 90% of the male population, there is hardly any mention of transgender people. There is a brief mention of how it affects the LGBT community and how women are dating women now, but other than that...nothing. I feel this could have been an area to have dived into and explored more. Another thing that bothered me was the depiction of China. From all the countries in the world, China is the only one that falls into a civil war and breaks into smaller countries like…

Soooo yeah…. quite a disappointment.

This book caught my attention by the title alone, but the premise was so interesting. A virus wipes out 90% of the world’s male population but doesn’t affect females. This makes Covid look like nothing.

Just imagine how insane this would be if it actually happened. I really can’t fathom it. This book was gripping, suspenseful, and had me at the edge of my seat. It’s also heartbreaking to see the characters lose the ones they love and trying to put yourself in their shoes.

This story is told through multiple perspectives, which got to be confusing at times, but overall was cool to see different stories. From the A&E doctor who first discovered the virus, to the doctor who developed a vaccine, to the anthropologist who loses her family, everyone’s story had me hooked. This book did not drag out at all and to sum it up- is just super interesting.

I'm really impressed with this as a debut novel. The End of Men gave me what Afterland failed to in the sense that this felt so much more real and visceral in it's depiction of a 'Man Plague' so to speak. I enjoyed all of the different points of view and the time frame of this book.

I can certainly see why it wouldn't be for everyone - but it's still going to be one I recommend to a lot of people.

End of Man is a real page turner because the characters are so real I wanted to find out what happened to them. There are both heroes and villains but all are deeply understood. It was also notable for a general absence of anti-male sentiment.
The quality of the writing is also exceptional. It is minus pretentious stylistic quirks that I find annoying and do not suit the subject of the book, but is expressive and fluid.
All in all one of the best near future novels I’ve read (and I’ve read just about everything).

With eerie prescience, Christina Sweeney-Bird writes of a pandemic era not unlike the one we are experiencing. Though the plague she describes is different from COVID 19, the social disruptions are much the same. And while some readers might find the idea of a life during pandemic novel a bit to close to home, The End Of Men is worth reading in its own right. Well plotted, with interesting and well drawn characters, it reckons with the emotional cost of world-changing events on individual lives, while still exploring the “what if” changes on society at large. Grief pours out of the book, not only for individuals lives lost, but for life - a way of living - lost. More than anything, the book’s meditation on loss, grief, and bereavement is a sharp reminder on the reflection we are all facing.

My Rating: 10/10

My Review:
“…and I realize that the only thing scarier than knowledge is the lack of it.”

Why? WHY do I love apocalyptic, plague-ridden books so much? To be fair, The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird deserves ALL of the accolades. My heart? My poor heart has some qualms though. I finished it in one day despite the palpitations and mounting anxiety I felt while reading.

The End of Men obviously hits even harder because we are going through a pandemic right now. I’ve read pandemic novels before. When I read Wanderers by Chuck Wendig (which I adored), I was blissfully unaware of how it felt to live through a pandemic. I was scared, but it didn’t feel like a reality. Oh, how little did I know. Reading The End of Men, I feel every bit of terror these characters feel. As an asthmatic with a young child, as someone who has had loved ones contract and die from it, COVID struck fear into my heart. That fear has only slightly lessened now that I’m vaccinated, as I still worry about my young son daily. These women fearing for their husbands and kids and watching loved ones face death are all too relatable.

“Who knows how far this virus has spread across my house? I can’t see it, can’t smell it, can’t hear it?”

In this novel, you have doctors fighting tirelessly against this virus with science and logic while being ignored by major health and political officials, racing against the clock to find the cause and cure. The message boards are being lit up by conspiracy theorists– in this case, incels who believe that women manufactured this virus to punish men. Everything is being made political and logic is going out the window in a time when people should be working together to keep others safe. People are trying to monetize a cure for a virus that is killing people. Sound familiar? What’s amazing is that Christina finished writing this before the pandemic, but it goes to show that human nature is often too easily predicted in times of crisis.

This novel raced along at breakneck speed, demanding to be read. The multiple POVs were so well done, giving us a view from many levels and different types of people. This fictional pandemic is much worse than the one we are going through, but it still prodded at the tender parts of my heart. It had me in tears at times. The End of Men is a constant emotional rollercoaster. Though there was obvious fear, there was the hope that science brings. The determination of these women to find a cure, to save society even as they are intensely grieving was so inspiring. Watching women grapple with their grief, with their jealousy of the women around them with daughters or immune husbands was heartbreaking. I think it is natural to feel animosity towards people when their life is going better than your own, especially when it is no fault of your own that your world has fallen to pieces.

“She can’t understand, and I hate her for it. I love her and I loathe her and her two daughters and her immune, living husband. I miss her and I hate her so much I can barely see. One day maybe I won’t be so angry but that day is not today.”

The End of Men is broken down into parts, we follow along the whole pandemic from patient zero. As the numbers of men are dwindling, we see a societal shift of women being the ones in charge. It’s a very interesting concept. While we can laugh and make jokes about life without men, the fact is that we need sufficient numbers of men and women to keep the human race going.

This is an amazing book. It made me want to hug my son and my husband. Where there were tears, there was hope. Where there was the unknown, there was the comfort of science. Where there was destruction, there was rebirth. The End of Men is brutal, scary, but oh so marvelous.

“Bad things and good things can coexist,” Amaya says with a sad smile. “And we have to find the good where we can.”

"Remembrance: mine and theirs..."You remember them and now so do I."

In November, 2025, an extremely lethal virus appears in Scotland. The disease affects only those with the XY chromosomes (men) and has a 90% fatality rate. The virus spreads globally very quickly and there is no treatment.

What does a world without men look like? The narrative consists of first person stories from the women left behind to make sense of the new world. The doctors, social historians, virologists frantically trying to create a vaccine, and others whose lives have been destroyed leaving a void that can never be filled. The losses of fathers, husbands, sons, friends, and relatives change the entire meaning of life for all who survived. Of course there are shifts in politics, work, education, and the meaning of home and family. NO SPOILERS.

I was blown away by the overwhelming emotion in these pages and found it so compelling that I could not put it down. How prescient a novel, written before the current COVID-19 pandemic, to be right on target with the many ways in which humans react to this devastating disease. We are a social people, and the isolation and grief are universal reactions to an event of this magnitude (though thankfully our current pandemic is nowhere near as destructive nor is it gender specific). The stories give a glimpse of how enormous the impact would be if the world suddenly lost almost all the men. Of course there could have been many more "stories" but just thinking of the cataclysmic effects is very scary. Because of all the unanswered questions, I believe this would be a fantastic novel for a book club with so many aspects to discuss. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for this e-book ARC to read, review, and highly recommend.

2.5/5 stars.

With books like these, it is difficult not to focus in on what didn't work for me, perhaps because of how many utopia/dystopia/apocalypse-type books there are out there. So while this book was okay, it didn't do anything revolutionary, nor did it really add anything to this pandemic/outbreak genre. I would say, on the whole, this book skims and skates over a surface idea of "what if there was a viral outbreak that somehow only focused on the genetically male population and was super deadly?"

We get a book told in several time-period sections (i.e. before, during, after), over so so many different individual people's personal story moments, some who return and some who are merely snapshots-of-a-pandemic stories. This made it incredibly difficult to really attach to any one person and feel much about them, specifically (apart from the devastation as a whole). I say this, because the whole last section was about recovery from the pandemic and tried to clue us in to what all these repeat-people were doing now and how they were coping - to me, this was the most boring section of the book, and I honestly skimmed most of it. I think the most interesting and forward-driving parts of the book were the "how it started" and "during" parts.

To have made this a truly fascinating and successful book, there was so so much missed opportunity to really delve into it. Some examples: there's ZERO explanation of how so many male-driven professional fields (i.e. electricians, IT, scientists - basically STEM jobs) just flipped on over to being (successfully) female. This pandemic lasts several years, but even so, you're telling me that without training and education a bunch of women just became placed into essential roles and there was no momentary fallout? And that this worked? I find it hard to believe that there wasn't more breakdown in political systems and essential elements - food, electricity, water, trade, etc. That isn't to say that this wasn't mentioned - it was mentioned - but just in the way I mentioned it here. Like a thought experiment. I think more detail would have been interesting, personally, also more believable. Also, how did this entire book just have one small chapter in the "after" about how this whole thing affected the LGBTQ community? Possibly it was too challenging for the author to address, but I think this book would have stood out a lot more if there was something different to hone in on.

Essentially, this book needed a lot more than motherhood to hone in on what would happen if 90% of the genetically male population of the whole planet was killed off by a virus in 2 years. It really really focused on women as mothers and wives and how hard it would be for them. There was one chapter on some angry INCELs online talking about how it was a purposeful takedown of the male population by women, and I really feel like in this day and age that that would have played out a lot more violently than it alluded to. I see these guys, and the surviving males, really losing their minds and getting violent, targeting women in power, and requiring something be done about it, but according to this book's take, none of that happened.

I just think this book skimmed the surface too much, and resisted delving deeper into anything too challenging. It's ultimately a book about motherhood in a pandemic, which is fine, but not what the description of this book suggests it would be about.

I’m absolutely blown away that the author wrote this entire book BEFORE COVID-19. In this amazing book, the world contracts a virus that kills 90% of the men’s population. Woman contract the virus and can pass it on but experience no symptoms.

The book switches POVs between quite a few people telling the story as of the first day of the pandemic and throughout the world’s recovery. The chapters are interspersed with articles and letters and is a fascinating look at what could happen if the world lost 90% of the males, including babies, toddlers, boys, and men.

There were so many times while reading that I had a few tears dribbling down my cheeks as each POV told their story. It was truly heartbreaking.

This book was extremely realistic... Almost too realistic as we go through our own real world pandemic.

Bravo to the author for a terrifying look at what could have been.

*Thank you to Penguin Group Putnam and to NetGalley for the advance copy!*

Are you ready to read a book about a global pandemic yet? Because, if you are, this book is excellent. One of the most intriguing things about it is that the author wrote it before the current pandemic became a widespread thing.

Men start catching a flu and dying. The women seem to be immune. When half of the population is rapidly dying, women take over. Some of the author's ideas about what that might look like are really interesting.

The math/science behind this is a little iffy, but the book itself is great, so I suggest just ignoring that and enjoying the book for what it is.

Review to be posted on blog: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend.com/

Wholly and Completely Brilliant.

Yes, I read a book about a Pandemic in a Pandemic.

Some would say that’s in poor taste, and yet, I couldn’t resist. I am not one to shy away from difficult topics and frankly, “The End of Men” is brilliantly written, brilliantly plotted, and gave me a lot to think about given the state of things. For me, this showcased how much that has gone on in our world relating to how things were handled (in real life) compared to how they were handled in the book (which was written before our pandemic hit - though it isn't being released till now).

The year is 2025 during which time a virus breaks out at an A and E in Scotland.

The virus impacts only men.

When a man is admitted, he arrives with what appears to be symptoms of the flu. Three hours later, he is gone. Shortly thereafter, several more men lose their lives the same way. All of these men were in the A and E two days prior. Dr. Amanda McLean is a doctor in the A&E who immediately notices the trend and reports it to HPS to no avail.

She is deemed a stark raving lunatic by her peers at HPS and her messages are ignored.

And so it begins. An Outbreak of Epic Proportions.

Once it starts, entire families stay home, Women, men, children. Yet this virus does not discriminate. If you are of the male species, you are at risk, unless you are immune.

Amanda McLean will not rest until she is taken seriously and until she does everything she can to help.

There is Catherine, who after facing a devastating loss, compiles stories of families who have also suffered. There are Elizabeth in the UK and Lisa in Canada, both of whom are scientists and who work to find a vaccine. There is Toby, who is currently on a boat off the coast of Iceland with his identical twin Mark, hoping to stay alive.

These characters and their stories will stay with me. Heartbreaking, yet hopeful at the same time, these characters were a great reminder that we must take stock in each other and be there for each other during these incredibly tough times.

The analysis behind how scientists in this book discovered that the male plague impacted only men (with women being carriers) and why some men were immune was truly fascinating, as was how long it took for a vaccine to be discovered. That alone gave me pause considering where we are at in the world, with this pandemic. It also made me extremely thankful. I just received the second dose of the vaccine and am so very grateful.

All in all, “The End of Men” gave me a lot to ponder. The storyline was extremely well done as was the character development. I truly enjoyed getting to know all of the characters (even though there were a lot to keep track of) and will not forget them anytime soon. Reading this now, made me appreciate life that much more and it gave me a lot of perspective.

I have to give kudos to the author for an incredible accomplishment. This is brilliant, character-driven fiction at its finest. This book will most certainly be on my Goodreads Best-of-List for 2021.

Thank you to Cassie at Putnam Books/GP Putnam’s Sons for the arc via NetGalley.

Posted on Goodreads, Instagram, and Twitter.

3.5 Stars rounded up...

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The story was heartbreakingly sad and gripping, but about 3/4 of the way through, it started to lose steam.

My main issue with this book is SO many people are introduced only a few times that it was very difficult to remember who went with which story.

There was a US military spouse that had one short chapter, then was never mentioned again (which was a bummer cause I liked her). Many of the names are so basic, and interchangeable that I kept mixing people up (Amanda, Catherine, Elizabeth, Dawn). I would have to flip back to the last chapter they were mentioned to remember where we left off with them.

However, the bones of the story were excellent. A disease that only affects men, and completely decimates the earths male population? Super readable!

I thought it was interesting how the dynamic changed for the 1% of the surviving male population who were immune. Suddenly they found themselves in a WOMANS world. Men become such a rare sight that when they go out they find themselves constantly harassed and propositioned by women looking for male companionship. Women are in charge of major companies and world leaders are almost all female. It was interesting to read how the men handle having the shoe on the other foot (spoiler alert...not well, lol).

Overall, I would absolutely recommend this book. As I said, the story does start to drag a bit, and could easily have been shaved down by 50-100 pages, but I’m glad I read it. It’s crazy how the author started this book in 2018 only to finish it at the beginning of a worldwide pandemic. What a strange thing to experience!

It’s 2025 and a pandemic has broken out. The virus only affects men, and has a 90% mortality rate. As men and boys drop dead worldwide, it’s up to the women to take on the workforce and fight for a cure. We hear from many voices throughout the world before, during, and after.

This book freaked me out and made me horribly sad. As a mother of two boys, this one was difficult for me. I cannot even imagine what these women all went through. So I loved and disliked the different perspectives. I loved it because I got to hear differing voices and understand what the world went through on a holistic and cultural level. I disliked it because there were certain stories I enjoyed more than others, and I had to force myself not to rush through the “less entertaining” chapters. In the end, I think it worked and gave me a grander understanding of the situation. I also liked how the reader learned and grew with the characters. I feel like this may be a story that only readers who are into pandemic and science will LOVE, but many will still like it.

“Without a cure, 10% of the world’s men can conceive 10% of the number of babies they previously did. Half of those babies will be girls. Only 10% of the 5% will be immune. The numbers don’t add up. This may be the end of all of us.

The End of Men comes out 4/27.

4.5 Stars rounded up.

Holy moly, I did NOT anticipate this book! I had requested this from Netgalley and by the time I was approved I had completely forgotten about it. I re-read the blurb and wasn’t totally sure why I requested it. I’m not into stories that are of the man-hating, woman-utopia kind and so I really couldn’t figure out why I asked for this. However, having received the approval, I dutifully opened the story to start reading.

AND I WAS IMMEDIATELY HOOKED!!!

The book feels really short because the ‘chapters’ are just a few pages long and each one is from a different POV. This book does end up having numerous POVs but I didn’t feel like I had a hard time following who was who. Christina Sweeney-Baird did a phenomenal job of really fleshing out these characters and giving them each their own story so that you feel like they are individuals.

The book ends up covering quite a span of time, starting from 5 days before the pandemic, when Dr. Amanda MacLean treats a man with flu like symptoms who quickly dies, and she starts to suspect something darker and more dangerous may be at large; all the way through about 6 or 7 years after the initial outbreak. We get to see the lead up to the pandemic and how people are at first incredulous and don’t believe it will become anything big, let alone travel from where it starts in Glasgow, everywhere in the world. We then see stories from various different women who are dealing with the pandemic in their own way. Losing husbands, fathers, and sons. Watching hopes and dreams of motherhood disappearing right before their eyes. The pandemic that CSB wrote is truly terrifying. A two-day incubation period, followed by flu like symptoms, and death within 5 days of the initial transmission. Along with the fact that the virus can sit on a surface for up to 36-hours. Thinking about how scary Covid has been, this takes that kind of pandemic anxiety to a whole other level. Funnily enough, CSB was writing this book before Covid was ever even a thing!

Ultimately, this ended up being an extremely emotional read. Yes, it feels very far-fetched that there could be a virus that specifically goes after men, however the way it is explained in the book does allow for an easier time of suspending belief. You really feel what the different characters are going through and it’s interesting to see how this massively fatal virus ends up affecting so much of the world in various ways. The social, economic, and governmental effects are extremely large and totally make sense within the context of this insane pandemic. This is no where near the man-hating, woman-utopia story I feared I was going to get. Things are super effed up in this world. But there is also a pretty big commentary on how our male-dominated world could be pushed over the edge if something like this were to happen. With so many male-dominated professions (first responders, doctors, politicians, scientists, etc.), having that population just suddenly die would be disastrous.

I found this story to be extremely interesting and thought-provoking and would highly recommend it to those who enjoy speculative fiction mixed with character driven pieces and medical dramas/thrillers.

Releases April 27, 2021

ARC received from G.P. Putnam’s Sons via Netgalley.

I don’t think we have even begun to unpack the trauma we’ve experienced individually and collectively during covid. This story certainly hits close to home right now. I expected this as it’s a story about the ramifications of a global pandemic, this one however is a virus that is carried by women and only affects men.

The story takes us chronologically starting from a few days before the outbreak, through the race for a vaccine, and to the aftermath of a world with 90% of the male population wiped out. We hear the voices from multiple narrators, mainly women with a few men, one in particular being a misogynistic asshole who is infuriatingly immune, women of color, and lgbtq women. That aspect of the book was incredibly refreshing. Reading about the loss of husbands, partners, fathers, and sons alongside a general harrowing uncertainty however was rough.

I would definitely recommend this book. The writing was compelling and the storyline was realistic. It’s emotional reading the parallels with our own pandemic reality so I would keep that in mind as it could bring up some difficult feelings. Overall I enjoyed reading this one

The End of Men
By. Christina Sweeney-Baird
P. 400
Format: eArc
Rating: ***
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I received an e-arc from @Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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TW - This book is about a pandemic.

In The End of Men a pandemic wipes out 90% of all men on the planet. The story is a catalog of the surviving women. It is told from multiple perspectives of women from varying backgrounds. The characters are used to move the plot forward. In such a narrative style it should be a strongly character based book. Yet, it is not. It is really the plot that moves the narration forward. The plot is just interwoven through multiple characters narration.

The main reason that this works is that the characters do not really chance. The voice all stays the same. I am very bad with names, and I often forget all but the MC name when reading a book. Since there were a variety of MC and the names were all so dang generic (Amanda, Elizabeth, Cathrine, Lisa) I couldn’t remember who was who. I also could not tell who was who from their narrative voice. I had to wait for a context clue - ie this is the one who works at such and such job. This is the one that had this husband. Even the sole male narrator had a similar voice.

The story itself was interesting to read. It was a bit of a hard subject after a year of living through our own pandemic, but it was fascinating to see how the author pictured human responses. The plot was chillingly realistic.

I really do wish that the author spent some time talking about gender vs. biological sex. For 90% of the novel they were treated as one and the same thing. The last minute save at the end of the novel was not enough. Also, human biological sex is not as simple as the book suggested and that was never brought up by the genetic scientists.

I did enjoy reading it, and do feel like it is worth the read. However, I would suggest you check it out of the library before you invest in your own copy.

Many thanks to Putnam Books for an advance readers copy.

This is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” because I didn’t jive with this pandemic trope at all.
If you don’t want to go through the motions of 2020, skip this. “The End of Men” is a story set in 2025 about a new plague originating in Scotland and mysteriously only affects men. Told through a variety of mainly female perspectives from around the world, it’s a collective story of terror, fear, chaos, sadness, and some hope - eerily similar to the world since 2020. The writing was ok, but the back and forth in the many story lines took some getting used to. Granted it’s probably a good book and debut in pre-pandemic standards, I didn’t care for it.

“The End of Men” hits U.S. shelves on April 26, 2021.

Reminiscent of World War Z and well, life in the last year, comes this story about a fatal disease and everyone trying to live through it.

In 2025, a mysterious virus breaks out in Scotland that seems to kill men who contact it within days, leaving women as unwitting carriers. The lone doctor who notices and tries to warn everyone, Amanda, is passed over as a hysterical woman (the irony) and before everyone knows it, it's too late. What will the world look like without fathers, sons and husbands? Will anyone be able to create a vaccine that will save the remaining men? And how will humankind continue?

This book goes through multiple narrators, including Amanda the doctor who first discovers the disease, Catherine a social historian and Elizabeth who is trying to develop a vaccine. And I had the same problem with this book as I did World War Z, too many narrators to keep track of and it moved on too quickly from the ones I actually liked. Plenty of people like World War Z, though, so I am sure plenty will enjoy this take on the virus taking out mankind.

The thing I like most about this book is envisioning Christina Sweeney-Baird and Penguin Group Putman’s faces when COVID-19 hit. Like, it gives me all the feels and giggles thinking about our very real virus unfolding and their marketing team being like “Okay….do we market this as dystopian still?”. At what point did panic and the release date swiftly change (totally guessing, not fact)? Fortunately for all parties involved readers included, Sweeney-Baird’s The End of Men was a solid and entertaining read. I found it addicting, really.

4.5 stars rounded up!

Okay, it isn’t going to sit right with everyone because it is a little too close to home. But if you don’t mind that, it really was entertaining watching this “plague” unfold. We could compare our virus handling and experience to this novels. I actually quite liked that aspect. Especially since readers get that peek into the future. The End of Men will take readers beyond where we are currently in our own pandemic. I thought that was also an interesting touch and experience readers could have while reading this novel.

There are so, so, so many characters. And it goes without saying a lot of female names. That is usually a pet peeve of mine while reading. But it really worked for me. The more names meant more insight into different women’s experience with the plague. It also wasn’t too bad keeping their stories straight. So no complaints there.

Given the nature of this book, I was very emotionally invested. I found myself fighting back tears or tearing up because it wasn’t easy. This novel brought out such hate and anger from me too. I found one character in particular to be so infuriating that I just ranted in my notes about what type of vile creature she was for so long. It also brought a little hope. Sweeney-Baird ended with a glass half full type of feeling which I think is something we all need.

One little thing. I think the author does a pandemic justice in her portrayal. However, I found that she ignores the virus creating new strains until well after two years of the plague. It was also basically dropped after that one acknowledgement. Just saying, knowing what we know now, it didn’t quite go unnoticed by myself how it didn’t play a part in this dystopian world.

Overall, I found this book to be thought provoking, relatable, and unputdownable. I am very much on the other end of the spectrum where this book probably worked more with the world as it is now.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Putman for the read. Thoroughly enjoyed!

Eerily prescient and at times tough to read given the state of the world. The real draw is reading about the social and cultural implications of a pandemic that only infects men. It's thrillingly imaginative in that regard.