Based on general genre elitism and what I knew about this book, I assumed this would be a literary dystopian novel but actually was pretty solidly in science fiction—although I doubt Harpman would consider herself a science fiction writer or her book science fiction. People are so resistant to that label for very silly reasons. 

Like all the best science fiction, this book is grounded in thematic questions and concerns. I was immediately taken in by the idea that a girl has to be completely removed from everything about society to have any true concept of herself, a true idea of what a world that doesn’t hate women could look like, but at the loss of literally everything else. The women that she is imprisoned with are focused on the trapping of a patriarchal heteronormative life, thus representing the idea that women's lives are so curtailed that in a world of absolutely nothing the unnamed narrator has more freedom than these women did in their lives before imprisonment. They carry their psychological cages with them, while the narrator, having no reference point for "normal" female socialization, develops an authentic sense of self. This creates an almost tragic irony—she gains what they've lost, but at the cost of everything that makes life recognizable. Of course, this presents the question of if there is such a thing as an “authentic” female identity. Is the narrator truly more “authentic” because she’s removed from interpellation by society or are those social constructions necessary for having identity period? Harpman is asking: what would a woman be if she weren't taught to be a woman? 

I know that some readers will be annoyed by the fact we don't "find out what happened" but that’s entirely missing the true point of the book. The refusal to explain the imprisonment supports this thematic focus completely. Any explanation would shift attention to plot and world-building, when the real subject is the interior landscape of identity formation, particularly for women. The mystery isn't what happened to them - it's what happens to female consciousness when it's allowed to develop without patriarchal interference. 

The theming and resistance to world-building and plot development are reinforced by the sparse almost clinical prose. Harpman doesn’t waste a single word, honing her narrative focus to the narrator’s interiority and observation at the expense of everything else—just like the narrator’s sense of self is focused on her interiority and observations at the expense of everything else. The setting reflects this too: the bare, unending, repetitive landscape is a blank space for the narrator to inscribe any meaning on to, but also provides absolutely nothing for the narrator engage with or build herself against or within. 

I could delve into critiques about the 90s-style feminism present here, one that resists direct engagement with queerness and wanders into some biological essentialism at times, but I think those elements can be bypassed to focus on the more fundamental thematic questions and the artful coalescing of character, writing style, and setting to support those themes in a holistic and affecting way. This book definitely won’t be for everyone; if you’re something who values plot over everything else then you will be perpetually annoyed by the book’s resistance to anything resembling answers, but if nuanced explorations of unanswerable questions interests you, I’d definitely give this one a try.