2024 is apparently the year I’m reaching for more quiet dystopian novels than usual. So far I’ve read They, The Mark and The School for Good Mothers, all set in near-future dystopias that don’t seem outside the realm of possibility. I Who Have Never Known Men is a bit more extreme in its concept, but is equally quietly unsettling.

Translated from the French by Ros Schwartz, this book is told by a woman who was raised in a bunker with 39 other women, caged by guards, never seeing outside - not even knowing if they’re still on planet earth. When one day an alarm sounds just as a guard is unlocking their cage to drop off supplies, the women find themselves faced with a freedom that could be more ominous than their confinement.

The feelings of desolation and solitude compete with hope and a steadfast desire to remain human - whatever that may mean. That’s something our narrator, who has never known anyone besides the 39 woman from the bunker, is constantly grappling with. What makes someone human? At what point do we roll over and give up? Honestly it was a lot of existentialism for quiet 5am dog walks, but I was into it.

I was less into the frequent listing of tinned foods and items that the narrator came across in her ceaseless wanderings. I’m all for quiet dystopians but this did occasionally teeter into boring dystopian territory.

I’ll also say that the narrator of the audiobook wasn’t my favourite. There wasn’t much inflection in her tone, and while it did sort of fit the hopeless-yet-hopeful vibe of the book, it wasn’t to my personal tastes.