This was such a cool concept of a story and answers the question of "what if women ruled the world?". The alternate history aspect of stories are really intriguing and worth a literary deep dive. I loved it.

This unfortunately was really just not the book for me. I was surprised to find out that this was originally published in 1913 but then I felt better about hating it knowing that the author is dead. I spent most of my time being annoyed and it wasn't even one of those "love-to-hate" situations so overall I was unfortunately just frustrated.

**I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

First off, when I requested this book from NetGalley, I didn't realize it was originally published in 1913.

I found the (newly added?) introduction to the book to be terrible. That should have a been a clue! Regardless, I skimmed and skipped over the intro and started reading.

This novel has a great premise - a plague that seems to affect only/mostly men, and is always deadly. It seems as though it could be highly relevant today, and an interesting read.

No! The dialogue is horrible. Also, the characters are horrible too. I didn't connect with any character, and quite honestly, didn't care what happened to them.

I enjoyed a brief section where the well-off daughters go on a binge trying on fancy clothes they have no use for, but that was about it.

There are some interesting concepts buried in here, but none fully developed. What happens when there is only 1 man for every 100 women? What becomes of marriage? Monogamy? Industry?

Now, since it was written in over 100 years ago, maybe this is to be expected, but this novel presents a very sexist view point. The women that are most like men, or have "masculine" inclinations are implied to be best suited to the new world.

Also, SPOILER:
Deus ex machina at the end, here's some men that escaped, hurray, now we're saved.

3.5 stars.
Written over one hundred years ago, this novel feels still relevant. The author describes a pandemic that seems to be mostly targeting and killing men, sweeping away all the order, infrastructure and habits of old. To show how some may cope after such a radical set of changes to societies, the author focuses on the Goslings: father, mother and two daughters.

When things start breaking down the father becomes tyrannical with the women, shocking them as they had previously been able to easily cajole and convince him to their ideas. Though he survives the illness, he eventually leaves them, disappearing from their lives, never to be heard from again.

The women each exemplify the typical responses to the huge changes to their lives: the mother cannot wrap her head around the loss of “civilization”, and becomes increasingly despondent and disengages. Younger daughter Millie doesn’t fully embrace the new opportunities to redefine herself and take control of her life, while Blanche, realizing early that the other two will flail and fail without her, steps up and sensibly engages with the new reality, learning and doing whatever she can.

The author had a surprisingly progressive idea of how well women would cope with the horrific scope of losses to their society. He also had a depressingly prescient idea of the way people would rationalize, refuse to believe in the sickness, bargain, and even think of profiting from a pandemic. Considering this was originally published five years before the influenza pandemic of 1918, and years before our own experiences with COVID-19, the author was eerily accurate in characterizing the societal responses to such a fast-moving and incomprehensible illness sweeping the world.

The prose is somewhat dry and my interest held and waned repeatedly while reading, but it’s still an interesting thought experiment.

Thank you to Netgalley and to MIT Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

an interesting novel written over 100 years ago which seems to still have influence today. while the author writes women characters poorly i find this is often a symptom of male authors in the early 20th century. overall i enjoyed the book and this cover is promising to bring new readers to a modern classic.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this E-ARC for an honest review.
In requesting this I, for some unknown reason, was under the impression that I was picking up a graphic novel.. So I was surprised to realize that it was, in fact, a regular novel. Unfortunately, this was not the book for me and I did not finish it. I didn't realize going in that it was originally published in 1913. Now I am never one to shy away from older novels -- many of my favorites date back to the 18th and 19th century -- but Beresford's portrayal of women proved quickly to not be my cup of tea. Maybe it might be something I'd pick up another day in a different mood.

It was at first interesting to read this story, since it was written more than a hundred years ago. Their were some resemblances with the current pandemic. So that was funny to read. But the it quickly lost my interest. The characters were not likeable, and quickly I even started to hate them.

The second half of the book I just wanted to get it ober with and finish the book.

J.D. Beresford’s book “A World of Women” (originally titled “Goslings: A World of Women) was first published back in 1913, just before World War I. It tells of a plague which kills off most of the men leaving the women to salvage the land. We follow the Gosling women as they try to make do with their new reality.

I get that the view of women, their agency and capability, was not the greatest back in 1913 – for example only women in New Zealand (1893), Finland (1906) and Norway (1913) had the right to vote – but I was quite dismayed nevertheless with how the women were portrayed by Beresford. It was like they didn’t know how to do anything without a man.

I can’t really say I was entertained; I can only say that this was an okay book for me as I spent a good deal being annoyed at the characters.

I did quite like this book, first we need to remember that this book was written in 1913, that’s more than 100 years ago, if you ask me if it is still relevant today, oh yeah, not in the same way as it was but kind of close.

what i felt that it was lacking was that I just wanted to know more of people that I know that were alive and/or their demise because the author simply forgot about them while telling the story.

First advice I give to all the ones reading this version of the book, skip the introduction by Astra Taylor, its like a review with spoilers, and biased with political opinions, and that is also my opinion… lets just come together for our love for books and good writing.

I got a free ARC of this book through Netgalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I tried to get into this book and I just couldn’t. Maybe it was just a me thing but it flopped for me.