The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is just a good book. Also its terrifying.
It is set in a post-apocalyptic United States, where most men are dead, and even more women are. Women are a small minority, and misogyny has reached new levels in its commodification of women.
The story is told from the perspective of a midwife, who chooses to disguise herself as a man to avoid the same degree of abuse other women do, trying to help any of them she comes across.
Its truly gritty, and there is a lot of sexual violence and terror. It isn’t exoticised or sexualised, but its real, and it is disturbing. For me, it was worth it, and I feel good about having read it. But it is DIFFICULT. Its intense, and certainly fucked with my head over the couple of weeks I was reading it.
I’m still having nightmares about the apocalypse.
But otherwise, great fun!
The midwife is bisexual, that’s made very clear, she is very much aware of her own sexuality. I wouldn’t say her sexual orientation is a focal point of the book, but I enjoy being able to read any story from the perspective of “one of us”.
notyouramelie said:
I loved this book overall. There were parts which terrified me but I loved the story and the characters. There’s a second book out now that follows on, a couple of generations after, it was different though.
