I’ve noticed a couple titles in the last year or so whose storylines centre the absence/nonexistence of men (e.g., Afterland, The Mercies). Naturally, I was very intrigued at such a premise.

The End of Men is my first foray into this trope. This novel chronicles the fictional events of 2025–2031 as a virulent pandemic sweeps across the world and decimates the male population. We follow over a dozen interweaving POVs, each illustrating how the world reels and comes to terms in all its realms—in love, economics, politics, medicine; we watch as this world rebuilds.

I thought it would be draining to read a book about a pandemic, but the opposite actually occurred—I got a glimpse into an even more terrifying, dystopic reality. I was able to say, “Things are bad right now, but at least they’re not this bad.” This being the Male Plague, with its 90% mortality rate, its ability to stay alive on surfaces for 36+ hours, its rapid spread (1.8x that of HIV).


Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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The best word I have for this book is scattered. It’s a quality that both enhances and detracts from the novel.

The End of Men switches dizzyingly between more than a dozen characters’ POVs. For most of the book, each character’s voice felt vaguely the same; it became difficult to keep track of who was who, where, doing what. I took to actually writing down characters’ names and defining features to differentiate between them.

Unexpectedly though, as the book progressed and the individual storylines interwove—with a recurrent focus on Amanda’s and Catherine’s plots—I found myself appreciating the diversity of perspectives. I liked how they eventually dovetailed and allowed the reader to track disparate experiences of the Male Plague.

Catherine is a social anthropologist who grapples with infertility both before and after the onset of the pandemic; as she mourns her loving husband and tiny son, she sets out to record stories of the Plague. Amanda is an A&E doctor in Glasgow (in the Independent Republic of Scotland) who discovers the Plague’s existence—and is gaslit for trying to alert the world to its devastation. Lisa is a professor of virology at the University of Toronto and eventual creator of the long-awaited, life-changing vaccine—only, she has decided to monetize its release. Elizabeth is a junior CDC virologist who travels to London to help with vaccine development; to her surprise, she finds love in a world that seems barren of it. Dawn works at the British Intelligence Services, one of the few Black women employed; she moves her way up the ranks, and through her POV we see the economic and political impacts of the Plague. There’s also Rosamie, a Filipina nanny for a wealthy Singaporean nanny; Toby, a 60yo English man who becomes stranded on a cruise ship off Iceland; Morven, a Scottish woman who runs a hostel that is forced to take in dozens of orphaned boys; and many more.

Sound confusing? Not gonna lie, it was.

At the same time, I found it fascinating to see the distinct ways in which the Plague, the loss of 90% of all men, reshaped the world. This was made possible by the panoply of POVs.

There is a scramble to rebuild the workforce, especially in professions formerly dominated by men; women find themselves at the helm of garbage collecting, electrical repair, army service, policy-making, global leadership. Elections are dominated by women; Canada has its first (full-term) female prime minister.

There is immense political upheaval. For example, the into twelve democratic states because the male-dominated army and Communist Party have been ravaged, allowing rebel parties to take charge of governance.

There are difficult decisions to be made about childbearing—for example, how to best protect male infants from viral exposure? New Zealand decides that, for the safety of he newborn boys, they will non-consensually remove babies from their mothers.

The Plague also necessarily has ramifications for romance and sexuality, including the smash-hit success of a dating app exclusively for women meeting women; many women deciding not to date; the devastation to queer communities, gay and trans folk especially.

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The last thing I’ll mention about this book is that I didn’t really jibe with the writing style. The prose in this book isn’t particularly artful or eloquent, rather favouring sentences that are curt and clipped and overly to-the-point.

As its name implies, there isn’t much subtlety in The End of Men—not the prose, not the premise. At times I was left with the distinct impression that the brevity of the sentences did not fit the scale of tragedy they described.

Other times I had to suppress a laugh at the absurdity. Take the description of a fictional and devastating riot at the San Francisco airport, for example. The passage uses “shoot” (or some related word like “shooter”) thirteen times. The effect is ABSURD. There is none of the horror, the calamity, that should accompany sniper activity at the airport. Instead, I wanted to laugh. I shoot the shooter. You shoot the shooter. The shooter shoots.

The book also features several news articles penned by a character by the name of Maria Ferreira. She’s described as the Washington Post’s former science editor, a woman who was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize—and yet her writing made me cringe; it’s devoid of lyricism, eloquence, impact.

The writing in these news articles was so simple, so heavy-handed, as to feel immature. (It doesn’t help that I’ve just finished a phenom book by Lulu Miller, a science writer for NPR, whose quick turns of phrase and clever, vivid prose puts The End of Men to shame. Not really a great comparison.)

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BOTTOM LINE: I wasn’t particularly impressed with the prose (or science) in The End of Men, but if you can acclimate to the dizzying swirl of character POVs, you’ll be rewarded with an interesting exploration into a post-pandemic world without men.

With all my love for dystopian novels and everything that is happening in the world right now, I find it surprising that I haven’t come around to read a book about a pandemic. When I read about this debut coming out this year, I’ve decided that it’s time to jump onto this train. 

The name “The End of Men” intrigued me and the synopsis sounded like something I might enjoy - the Plague that killed 90% of the male world population and left women to deal with it. In the course of the novel, readers get introduced to a lot of different characters; some of them were truly memorable for me (Amanda and Dawn were my favourites), while the others were kind of indistinguishable. Somewhere in the middle, I found it was very hard to keep track of all the stories, although each chapter starts with a name and a date. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and in the end I was pretty disappointed with the whole experience.
There were moments when particular figures made me cringe. A Russian woman who is being repeatedly abused by her husband, Filipino nanny (really?), an anthropologist who hates everyone whose husbands/sons are immune, and then Moldova is apparently a country drowning in sex traffic... The last chapters I read in a rush just to be done with it. 

Overall, I’m very disappointed because I had great expectations for this book especially it being so highly rated. I really wanted to like it, but I couldn’t close my eyes on all the stereotypes and cultural ignorance.