Handmaid's Tale meets Children of Men in this post-apocalyptic story as a fable for the treatment of women, but also the many ways women help society.

Post-apocalyptic Southeast Asian where nuclear fallout has wiped out most of the population. Furthermore, an HPV type virus has decimated women leaving very high men to women ratio. Women are then assigned husbands, sometimes as many as six to help rebuild civilization. This, of course, creates horrible conditions for women as they are little more than cattle ready to bread. Those that can escape work for The Pannah. They are comfort girls in the traditional sense. They spend an evening with a man for money. No sex, just companionship. It becomes emotional labor and comfort for me who only deal with men all day.

Unfortunately not my sort of thing, struggled for a while and gave up
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

A feminist dystopia by a Pakistani writer. Many centuries in the future – after a few nuclear wars and breakdown of religions – the greatest crisis in the world is the "Gender Emergency", a mutated HPV virus that swept across the globe and killed off the vast majority of women without harming the men. In Green City the government has responded by elevating the remaining women to a high status. They're pampered and wealthy, it's a capital crime to physically harm them, and they're given anything they want – except autonomy. They have no education beyond topics related to running a household and having healthy pregnancies, are married off to multiple men (and given no choice about which men), and are kept constantly pregnant on fertility drugs.

The main character is Sabine, a young woman who ran away in terror when assigned to her first marriage and ended up in the Panah, a household of independant women who maintain their secret existence by providing non-sexual feminine company for powerful men.

This is an intriguing setup, but unfortunately the execution just doesn't work. The plot ultimately focuses on Sabine's relationship with a young man she meets, which makes the whole thing feel more like a YA novel than anything else: cruel government as an excuse for star-crossed romance. The last part of the book especially falls apart, as characters abruptly betray one another or make odd choices for no reason I can discern, while others make wild leaps of logic that seem to come from nowhere but which I guess we're supposed to take as true.

I wanted more worldbuilding. I do think the whole concept of platonic female companionship becoming incredibly valuable is plausible, particularly if they're skilled in conversation, arts, music, language, etc – just look at historical examples like the hetairai, geishas, or tawaifs. But the women of the Panah don't provide anything like that; they're literally just warm bodies to sleep beside. Sabine in particular is quite outwardly resentful of her clients, which makes it even less believable that they'd risk so much to spend time with her. There's also absolutely no consideration of what such a gender imbalance would do to GLBTQ issues – would there be a lot of situational male homosexuality, for example? how do trans women fit in? – beyond a brief reference to young boys experiencing increased incidents of rape. Really, Shah? That's the one detail you want to give us? Okay then.

Overall, not terrible, but there are better books taking on the same concept.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2573467196

What a wonderful book! It took me a couple of chapters to really get into, but once I did I was hooked. I was intrigued by the character development and what made each of the characters "tick". The only thing I didn't like, was that I didn't feel like the book "neatly wrapped up", like I'm used to. I am hoping that it means that there will be a sequel! If you like dystopian books, especially similar to The Handmaids Tale, you will love this. Would highly recommend!

In a futuristic world torn apart by war, and disease affecting only women, procreation has been drastically altered compared to the life their predecessors once knew. A group of women find themselves distance from what has now become the current ‘norm’ and this book tells the story through their eyes.

The first chapter or two of this book i admit I was completely unsure about it, but I continued, I wanted to see which direction this story would take. I quickly realised I had made the correct choice in continuing with it. The writing is wonderfully descriptive and it takes me back to a familiar place where I can picture each character, visualising their attitudes and behaviours. There are two characters who I have found intriguing in their thoughts and actions and the communities through their eyes allowed for the emotional dimensions and further grasping of the world in which these women suffered, willingly or forcibly, the only chose they were given. From these perspectives you can identify with what these women are and become, they risked life itself to be who they now are and yet it is evident that even those fighting for this secret society are questioning the consequences and opportunities that they encounter.

I lived this book and yes, it is very in keeping with Hainaods Tale but it is also so much more, very well thought out.

I had such high hopes for this one!

** Trigger warning for violence against women, including rape. **

“When I got to the Panah, I was unused to the sight of women’s bodies not swollen and distorted by pregnancy. It seemed wrong, at first, as if something was missing. It took me months to realize that a woman’s stomach wasn’t always convex; that its default state was not always filled with another being.”

DNF at 59%, because life is too short to spend time on books that just aren’t doing it for you.

Set in the kind-of distant future, BEFORE SHE SLEEPS imagines a world wherein women are a scarce commodity. Nuclear war and climate change have drastically altered the landscape of South West Asia (and, indeed, the world), while a gender-specific virus has wiped out a majority of its female citizens. In the resulting chaos and power vacuum, an authoritarian order known as the Authority seized control.

Within the borders of Green City, life is strictly regimented – for everyone, but women especially. Women are not allowed to: work outside the home, keep journals, choose their own husbands (or number thereof), or use contraception, obtain abortions, or engage in family planning of any sort. They are required to maintain public profiles, so that men can shop for them online like so many consumer goods (unlike laptops, though, women cannot be bought or sold – only the Perpetuation Bureau can assign a Wife a new Husband); undergo rigorous and routine physical exams, including fertility monitoring; and accept as many Husbands – and pregnancies – as the Bureau deems fit.

It’s the inverse of fundamentalist Mormons, yet somehow women get the short end of the stick in this arrangement too (shocking, that!). Ostensibly, women are precious cargo to be treated with care and respect: in Green City, “it [is] a capital crime to hit or abuse a woman.” However, rape is a de facto part of the marriage system, as women are not permitted to choose their partners, nor deny them “life-giving” sex. After all, that is a woman’s sole purpose in society: to bear as many children as possible.

Yet girls and women still find ways to resist. Some children hide messages for each other, illicit forms of communication in a society where females are given precious little opportunity to interact with one another. On the more extreme end are the runaways, the fugitives, the disappeared women. Some of these women find their way to the Panah, a refuge located in a long-forgotten underground bunker on the outskirts of town. There they work as escorts, but instead of sex, they deal in emotional intimacy, something sorely lacking in these modern, dystopian marriages. Within this backdrop, we meet Lin, the niece of one of the Panah’s founders; Sabine, who escaped an early marriage arranged by her own father; and Rupa, who longs to return to society, despite the miseries it rained down upon her as a girl.

BEFORE SHE SLEEPS sounds like it should be right up my alley: I love dystopias, doubly so if they have a feminist bent, and I am a total Margaret Atwood fangirl. (Comparisons to THE HANDMAID’S TALE never fail to reel me in.) This seemed like a slam dunk. And, while I adore the concept, the actual execution left much to be desired. For lack of a more eloquent way of putting it, BEFORE SHE SLEEPS just didn’t do it for me.

Each chapter alternates between a different character’s perspective. This was all fine and good when it was just Lin, Sabine, and Rupa – but once Shah tossed in a few of Green City’s male denizens mid-book, it got to be a little too much for me. Moreover, I never really got a sense of each character’s distinct personality; the overall writing style felt pretty uniform across chapters. Oftentimes the character’s physical reactions felt overdone to the point of a bad B movie script. When imagining how some scenes might play out, all I could picture were comically terrible improv actors. Cringe-worthy doesn’t begin to describe it.

There are also quite a few info dumps – which, it must be said, isn’t always a mood killer for me, but here they often popped up in weird and awkward places. To wit: As Reuben races across town to retrieve his illicit mistress’s illegal girl, passed out unconscious in the street and maybe dying of who knows what, his thoughts randomly wander to … how he became one of the most powerful men in Green City? I mean, seriously! More likely that train of thought would go something like this: “OH SHITE OH SHITE OH SHITE F*** WHAT AM I GONNA DO WE ARE SO F***ED OH SHITE PLEASE DON’T LET THERE BE A RED LIGHT OH F*** ME F*** THIS F*** EVERYTHING I AM TOO OLD FOR THIS SHITE I NEED A VACATION.”

So, yeah, file this one in the “devastating disappointment” drawer. Bummer!

Clever dystopian novel with a female protagonist set in Southwest Asia in the not-so-distant future. Imagine a world in which most women have died of a virulent strain of HPV and those who survive must marry multiple husbands and spend their reproductive years continuously pregnant. A small set of resistors bands together to form a sort of brothel that traffics in intimacy rather than sex.

This was an interesting concept and I enjoyed the story. There are a lot of great dystopian releases and I hope this one doesn't get lost in the commotion. Recommended to fans of the Handmaid's Tale and 1984.

Green City in South West Asia is lush, modern, and hi-tech – a model of beauty and prosperity. The air is clean. Women are provided for and protected. There are good citizenship classes and robotic doormen.

Green City also has DNA security scanners. It has assigned marriages and women must take multiple husbands. As “the mothers of the new nation,” they are responsible for repopulating society and kept constantly pregnant. And if they break the rules as laid out in the “Handbook for Female Citizens,” there are harsh punishments – including “elimination.”

This is the world described in Bina Shah’s intriguing new dystopian novel, Before She Sleeps.

What first attracted me to this novel was its cover. It is alien-futuristic and I envisioned AI robots and flying cars everywhere. But it also gave me a sense of being someone down low to the ground, looking up at the new world from the depths.

I wondered if the underground was somehow going to play a part in the story – and indeed it does.

Because also in this world, there lives a group of women who refuse to capitulate to the new rules of forced marriage and childbearing. These women live underground only venturing out at night to provide a secret service to men – and it’s not the one you think.

These women don’t provide men with sex, but with intimacy. These women touch men, listen to men, hold men as they fall asleep; they give men the individual closeness they are desperately craving in this world. And although this allows the women to avoid the life of a wife, there is still a steep price to pay.

Before She Sleeps has been compared to The Handmaid’s Tale, and rightfully so. The premises regarding women are very similar, wherein men hold all the power, despite the necessity of the women in sustaining life.

What sets this novel apart from others in this genre is its grounding in South Asian and Muslim cultures and its commentary on some of the patriarchal traditions of those cultures.

Shah refers to these identities in a variety of ways throughout the book and makes statements on customs that oppress many Pakistani and Muslim women today, such as veiling practices and gender selection. These markers add tremendous value and yet are subtle enough to not affect the universality of the story.

While its getting increasingly difficult to shine amongst the growing field of feminist dystopian novels, Shah offers a valuable example of what will keep this genre fresh: stories that offer readers a relevant themes of resistance to patriarchal futures based on varying cultures, religions, identities, and other perspectives.

While the feminist in me appreciated the anti-patriarchal messaging of the book, I have to admit that the lesbian in me was like: “Wait. Where are all my queers?!”

Even though the “Gender Emergency” is mentioned repeatedly throughout the book, I felt it needed more development. There is no mention of people who are gender nonconforming, nonbinary, trans, queer, gay or otherwise. Where did they all go? Even the handbook only refers to “females.” The two or three times that the possibility of a man’s sexual relationship with another man is mentioned, it is framed by violence and shame – definitely not the portrayals we need reproduced.

I wanted to hear more about the Gender Emergency, the HPV that mutated and caused the decline of women, and the “Perpetuation scheme,” which was supposed to address the disparity. I also wondered what was happening in the rest of the world, outside of South West Asia. Some history was explained – there were references to the “Final War,” the three waves, nuclear winter – but if more developed, these details would’ve made a strong book even better.

Overall Shah’s writing is solid and she is adept at switching between voices of her characters. While this style may seem disjointed to some readers, I felt that it added to the overall feelings of volatility and imbalance of the world Shah built.

Despite some shortcomings, this is a satisfying and engaging novel that offers a nuanced take on the growing feminist dystopian genre. I look forward to reading more by Bina Shah.

This is a quick read that I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in speculative or dystopian writing, fans of The Handmaid’s Tale, and those with an interest in feminist literature, international writers, and/or women writers of color.

This book reminded me of A Handmaid's Tale, as it was about a world where most of the women were wiped out due to disease and war and those that remain have the sole purpose of procreating. This book was well written and an enjoyable read!

Set in Green City, the capital of South West Asia Before She Sleeps is a dystopic novel along the lines of The Handmaid’s Tale. The difference being that because the female population has been decimated by a version of the HPV virus they are treated with the utmost respect. Without them there is no way to replenish Earth’s population, but, not surprisingly, men have no intention of willingly ceding control of anything to the ‘weaker’ sex. Women are assigned multiple husbands and with the aid of fertility drugs are incented to procreate as often as possible. The more children, the greater the economic rewards. They have virtually no other rights or autonomy, but their bodies, as baby factories can’t be beaten or otherwise harmed.

Into this baby breeding, totalitarian environment one clever rebel and entrepreneur, Lin, creates a safe place for young women who want no part of the breedfest, but who still need a way to survive. Given the mandate to have sex as often as possible to impregnate their wives, but not to engage with them in most other ways, Lin provides powerful men with simple, unfettered female companionship. Her girls are ordered through the Deep Web and will spend the night, cuddling or sleeping. No sexual contact is allowed. Sabine is one of the young women who lives in the Panah, as it’s called. One of her Clients has begun to exhibit unwelcome feelings for her. She has no love for him, but soon finds herself in a dangerous and untenable situation that threatens not only her wellbeing, but that of the entire Panah community.

Author Bina Shah lives in Pakistan and Before She Sleeps is imbued with the very real sense of being in a country with repressive attitudes towards women. She makes no attempt to mask how closely this parable aligns with life for many women in Muslim countries. For some, the novel’s agenda may feel heavy-handed, but it didn’t bother me. If anything, I found that the novel’s plot and action, overshadowed the nuances of Lin and Sabine’s lives. The pace moved very quickly which worked well to maintain a sense of tension, but it didn’t give me time to invest in the characters. That aside, Shah succeeds in this atmospheric novel that gives a chilling look into a future that feels more like possibility than science fiction.

A twist on the feminist dystopian thriller. It's nicely written and I liked that the story was told through a variety of characters (including men). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Try this if you like this genre and are looking for one with a different setting.

The novel is a well-constructed thriller. The characters are believable, and the setting is too creepily possible for comfort..

The summary for Before She Sleeps compares the novel to The Handmaid’s Tale, and the comparison seems to be an appropriate one. The tone is similar – sort of sinister and foreboding even before we find out what is going on. There is the emphasis on women’s value only for reproduction, and a government that feels a need to control all the women at any cost.

But there are differences. The largest single difference is that this story takes place somewhere in the Middle East, in a city that was formerly in a desert even though it is on the coast. Because it is the Middle East, women in general may be less resistant to the government control than they would be in some other areas. But not all of them are so compliant.

The circumstances leading to the reproductive crisis that is the overarching background to the story are somewhat different too. In this case, there has been climate change leading to a war where various groups of militants launched a few small nuclear weapons at each other. This was followed by an economic collapse that spread from China to the coastal areas of North Africa. And then, the thing that really set the stage for the problem we are looking at: the gender emergency. There has been a plague – a virus that rapidly leads to cervical cancer, or some other form of cancer that affects women primarily, leading to their deaths within about six months. Men may be carriers of this disease, but it is the women who suffer for it.

Women in Green City were not much noticed before, what with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritage in the region that led to the general devaluation of women and a preference for males. But when all the women began to die, things rapidly began to degenerate into anarchy.

To combat this situation, a group of leaders in the city took over and made a lot of highly restrictive new rules. They waged a propaganda campaign to recruit all the women into the effort to repopulate the city. All the women were to marry – not just one husband, but two, three, four, or even more Husbands to one wife, since there weren’t enough women to go around. Apparently, the area’s troubles did not permanently destroy all their technology, as they plied the women with fertility drugs so they would have more children, but the repeated pregnancies, often with multiple births, weakened the women, leaving them vulnerable to premature death.

Anyway, the crushing rules didn’t sit well with some women, and this is what led to the formation of the Panah, a very small hidden group of women who kept themselves outside the rules of Green City and who were therefore considered illegal. Before She Sleeps is concerned primarily with their story.

The women of the Panah have survived for some thirty years by providing (mostly) non-sexual companionship for the powerful men of Green City, for which they are highly paid. But doing this is risky business. If they are caught, the Agency, which enforces all of Green City’s strict rules, will punish them, probably by putting them to death. To defend against this possibility, the Panah has some pretty strict rules of its own. But when just a few of these rules are stretched, bent a little, broken, the whole carefully engineered way of life begins to unravel, putting people’s lives and careers in jeopardy.

Review: BEFORE SHE SLEEPS by Bina Shah



BEFORE SHE SLEEPS is a work of feminist Dystopian futuristic science fiction. If this is the Future, I'm not going there. There is so much hubris in this story. The "Green City," constructed in a Desert (like the Hubris of Las Vegas and Dubai), the hubris of the patriarchs, thinking they can control women's bodies and lives (and do so all too efficiently), effectively utilizing women as breeders to propagate the populace {a common practice in Dystopian literature: see for example the science fiction of Pamela Sargent.
But always, always, there are rebels-dissidents--females who refuse to comply.

War and a deadly virus have resulted in there being more women than men in Green City, the capitol of South West Asia. The men have turned women into little more than slaves and brood mares. The women are required to marry multiple men and to produce as many children as possible before their bodies give out. There are women who want a different life for themselves than being bred to multiple men and men who miss the intimacy of just being with women without the pressure of being intimate with them. The Panah serves both of the latter groups—a safe haven for women and a source of women who will be with the men wanting emotional intimacy but not sex. The Panah is protected by influential men, but there are times when those men can’t protect the Panah.

Once the reader begins reading Shah’s book, it reminds her of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” But this book is not the Atwood book, there are similarities to be sure, but this book has an edgy feel to the writing that “The Handmaid’s Tale” lacked.

The writing is very good, the characters, for the most part, are well-drawn and interesting. Some readers may not like the book being told through different points of view. Others may not like the edgy tone of the writing. Regardless of the different points of views, this is an interesting character-driven read that deserves a wide audience.

Thank you to Netgalley & Meryl L Moss Media Productions for allowing me to read this book - a very Handmaids Tale-esque story, I thoroughly enjoyed these characters and their relation to one another.

Before She Sleeps features an interesting enough society that is, unfortunately, not expanded upon enough because the focus of the novel is on the characters’ reactions to the world rather than the world itself.

It’s always a disappointment when an author chooses to focus solely on the characters at the expense of the world building. Dystopian novels like these excel when they’re grounded in a solid world. Whether the world building is believable from a realistic viewpoint is irrelevant as long as what’s being presented is consistent within the narrative. Before She Sleeps could’ve been a success had the author made more of an effort in terms of world building.

What initially caught my attention about this novel was the fact that the story revolves around women who are contracted out to give intimacy without sex since the ratio of men to women favours the men. I’ll admit that the idea of men being starved of intimacy without sex seems like a stretch, but Shah presents it in a believable setting. The characters all work in tandem to create this believable network of women within this highly patriarchal society.

Shah opens up the novel strongly with a solid ground for the characters to take root and grow. The reader is introduced to the world, key players, and the set up for the climax of the novel relatively early. However, after the first 75 pages, the novel takes on a fast pace that moves too quickly as convenience after convenience allows the plot to move forward. It’s a whirlwind of a novel that doesn’t have the impact it’s trying to attain.

Novels like these are always compared to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Atwood has set the standard for feminist dystopian novels high, as few have been able to achieve the same level of success and widespread acceptance. Unfortunately, Before She Sleeps doesn’t accomplish what Atwood was able to though it’s far from the worst feminist dystopian novel I’ve read. In my opinion, it’s faults lies in the poor world building and too fast pace.

Overall, Before She Sleeps is a decent novel in this overwritten genre that focuses almost solely on the characters at the expense of the world.

“Plant your future.”
Bina Shah’s words that, to me, defined this novel.
Shah kept that sentiment at the forefront.
Fight for yourself, fight for your community, “Plant your future.”
Rebellion sustained intelligently and carefully by Green Cities strongest women: we readers are taken through every complex move made by our protagonists.
We feel every tight jolt of anticipation as they are forced to live off grid, underground and, in a sick twist of fate, must rely on the men who built their prison.
Every move made by our protagonists was a life or death decision.
Meticulous planning, relying on one another, having to trust in a world that did not earn that trust.
The author gives us a sobering look into a dystopian world in which women are under strict control, and are forced to be the bearers of repopulation.
My love for Lin, Sabine and Rupa, especially, kept me never at ease. The fear of their discovery loomed ahead and mysterious outsiders also kept me on my toes. Introductions to new characters at high risk times were interesting and made it easy to get attached quickly.
I found “Before She Sleeps” to be a rewarding read, a reaffirmation of the strength we women hold. Bina Shah’s writing is rich and thoughtful, her expression, stunning, words of history and deep meaning.
I’ve finished this book with eyes open wider and mind a little sharper.
A reminder to hold strong and fight for your rights and plant your future.

Thank you Delphinium and NetGalley for this Advanced Readers Copy!

BEFORE SHE SLEEPS is a post-apocalyptic novel, set in the near future, where human beings do not become flesh-eating monsters and technology has continued to flourish. In other words, not your usual after the devastation story. Described as feminist dystopian fiction, a classification that is new to me, this novel seems like a fine example with which to start. Perhaps I am not acquainted with this very specific classification because I find these nitty gritty pigeonholes stifling. I don't look at books as 'this is written by a Pakistani woman' (as BEFORE SHE SLEEPS is); I rather think 'this looks like something interesting that I would like to read.' My laissez faire attitude toward what I read has always expanded my horizons. When I was very young, my grandmother told a neighbor "she's good read and bad read" which I took to mean that there is no book to be dismissed out of hand.

I'm not quite sure what the difference is between dystopian and post-apocalyptic, but I will say that this book surely fits into both categories. It is also very like and equally unlike THE HANDMAID'S TALE. The similarities are that women are subjugated by men. The differences lie in the proclaimed reasons for this subjugation. The bottom line in either case is that women have little or no say over their own lives.

To think of this book as a form of feminist women's fiction is to do it somewhat of a disservice. Looking back at the Women's March, on Washington, DC, on January 21, 2017, I know that men turned out to support the women's positions, so why wouldn't men benefit from reading BEFORE SHE SLEEPS as well.

To be sure, whether you read dystopian fiction, or post-apocalyptic fiction, or if you're like me and just enjoy a good book from a fresh new voice, add this one to your TBR.

A virus has seriously affected human population. Even though men and women get infected equally, it is only deadly for the later with the consequence that the number of female citizens has drastically been diminished. Thus, in Green City, women are assigned several husbands and closely monitored to keep the number of children born as high as possible. This is the single task for them and there is no alternative to functioning as a kind of human breeder. But some women just don’t want to comply with the assigned role and a kind of secret underground community has been formed known as the Panah. To keep their group alive, the women offer a service which is not provided by the wives anymore: non-sexual companionship. Sabine is one of the women living underground, but when she collapses on the street after visiting a client, the whole community is threatened to be revealed.

Bina Shah, a Pakistani writer, columnist and blogger who has published several novels and short story collections has created quite an interesting feminist dystopian novel with “Before She Sleeps”. Since Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been talked about a lot in the last couple of months, it is quite natural to compare the two pieces of work since they belong to the same genre. In my opinion, Shah does not have to hide from the great Mrs Atwood.

What I found the strongest in the novel was the picture of the society highly affected by a drastically decreased number of women. On the one hand, they are worshipped since they are the only ones who can cater for an increase in population, on the other, they easily become the victims of rape and male outrage due to the non-fulfilled sexual needs. They are regarded not as equal human beings but in terms of their functionality and thus severely reduced in their significance as humans. Both, men and women, have no say when it comes to the choice of a partner. From a political point of view, this makes sense, but it is obvious that it doesn’t actually support social rest and satisfaction or content. What the new society lacks most seems to be compassion and emotion, this is only visible in the women living underground.

I also liked the protagonist Sabine. Her motivation for fleeing for her duty as a woman is well motivated and her family story comprehensibly portrayed. Also her state of mind and how she is betrayed by a man whom she trusted to a certain extent and the effect the abuse has on her psychologically seemed to me quite authentic and believable.

All in all, an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about women’s rights and the way they are treated by men.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced readers copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I usually don’t read this type of book (I usually read mysteries and thrillers) but the book description caught my eye and I thought I would slip out of my comfort zone and give it a try.
I’m so glad that I did because, I thought this book was fascinating, extremely well written and very interesting.
This is the 1st book that I read by this author but, it won’t be my last.
I highly recommend this book to everyone.