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The End of Men

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Member Reviews

Reading this intriguing book two years after the start of COVID-19 was likely a wise choice. Sweeney-Baird was able to bring to life the world during a pandemic, in such a way that it's difficult to believe this was written prior to COVID-19. If you want a fast-paced, realistic take on a pandemic that impacts the majority of the world's men, this is a recommended read. Thank you Christina Sweeney-Baird for sharing your talent with the world.

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First of all I would like to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to review this ARC, and clarify that all opinions remain my own.

I absolutely loved the writing and found the story deeply compelling. I could honestly tell there was an influence from World War Z within all the different perspectives. I felt like it went too fast, like the virus was moving too fast for me to catch up which is honestly quite impressive.

This book was so profound, painful and well-executed. I couldn't recommend this book more if I tried. It brought me to tears MANY times. It felt honest, and like nothing was held back.

I hope this review encourages you to read it because honestly it is one of the best books I've ever read.

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The timing of this story hits hard. Reading about a pandemic during a pandemic is too real. The biok started out intriguing. It pulls you in and again is so relatable. I enjoyed the different perspectives of the characters but found the back and forth between them got annoying. The little glimpses into their experiences were sometimes too short with either no interesting details to offer or had so much details that they could have been expanded on more. Also, i felt that there was a hard change between start and post pandemic. It jumped from one story to another and the post pandemic felt rushed through and I felt like the link between the characters at the start and end of the book wasn't there. Great idea though and had some really interesting moments.

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2"meh meh meh " stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Penguin Random House Canada. This was released released April 2021. I am providing an honest review.

A virus in 2025 eradicates nine in ten men. The women are carriers. Ok ok ok...the premise is very cool but how will the author pull this off. She mostly doesn't !

She takes a huge cast of characters and tells their story of losses and how they cope. Except they are mostly exceptionally very bright, progressive, privileged white women. Hmmm a suburban feminist manifesto methinks. Ok ok there is a filipina but she is very motivated and an oppressed Russian woman ok ok and a very bright woman who is black and british. Oh yes a few men too...they are not as bright but they are loved dearly by this bunch of women who want to save them. Gosh is this really just one brave white superwoman taking on all these roles ? Wtf?

The other thing about most of these women is that they all have the same personality sort of like thinking Stepford wives who are all so caring, nurturing and giving. A bit barf worthy here !

The prose is middling and acceptable and oh my goodness don't forget the trans woman nurse in Scotland who is spunky and ever so brave and high functioning !

Anyhow I was mostly bored out of my gourd of these extremely high functioning white women behaving ever so valiantly while at the same time dealing with their immense grief. Oh yes I know there was the Russian and Filipina and Black Woman too but they behaved like strong white American women too.

The premise was excellent .... the attempt was semi-valiant....the execution not so much !

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Maybe it’s because I read this – a novel about a pandemic – during an actual pandemic and my pandemic fatigue is through the roof at this point, but I couldn’t get into this at all. It was a sluggish chore to finish which comes with no payoff aside from “Hey! We’re getting through a pandemic!” Yeah, me too.

While I like the idea of society reforming into a matriarchial structure, this shit was too sad to find any pleasure in.

My biggest issue is that there are way too many POVs. It makes connecting to any one character impossible. Some women only get a chapter or two and are never heard from again once we consume their tragedy and heartbreak.

It started to read like the only purpose of this novel was to be pandemic torture porn.

And honestly, since 2020, my mental health is precariously right on the fucking edge every day, so reading sad pandemic trauma for the sake of it was not for me. Maybe others will find it cathartic.

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Christina Sweeney-Baird
The End of Men
Doubleday Canada, 2021. 416 pages.

Presque trois siècles après A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) de Daniel Defoe, une jeune autrice londonienne terminait en juin 2019 le manuscrit d'un roman décrivant une pandémie mondiale ciblant uniquement les hommes, avec un taux de mortalité de plus de 90%.

C'est ce livre qui paraît maintenant et qui s'avère d'une lecture absorbante. La catastrophe est annoncée dès les premières pages et ses prémices nous sont d'emblée familières. Pourtant, l'ouvrage se laisse lire avec un certain soulagement aussi, puisque c'est l'histoire d'une pandémie infiniment grave. Dans ce cadre fictif, Sweeney-Baird se permet d'articuler les peurs restées souvent muettes depuis un an et d'exposer sans pudeur la peine de ses personnages qui ont perdu des êtres aimés.

Le roman gagne en réalisme par rapport aux Hommes protégés (1974) de Robert Merle, où une épidémie ciblait pareillement les hommes, parce que nous avons vécu une pandémie, mais il perd aussi un peu de vraisemblance parce que le caractère dévastateur du fléau diffère de la pandémie actuelle. Comme il n'est pas question d'une pandémie antérieure, le roman est d'ailleurs devenu une uchronie, même si la « grande peste masculine » débute en 2025.

Sweeney-Baird n'a pas profité de la pandémie actuelle pour emprunter à la réalité récente des incidents ou détails pour son roman en cours de réécriture. Il n'y a pas de ruée sur les rouleaux de papier hygiénique et le port du masque n'est pas un enjeu de société. Une chercheuse torontoise met plus d'un an et demi à confectionner l'unique vaccin. Les lecteurs qui ont profité de la dernière année pour se familiariser avec la science des vacccins se poseront d'ailleurs des questions sur les bases scientifiques de l'intrigue. Ni la possibilité d'une thérapie génique ni la transmissibilité de l'immunité de certains hommes ne sont évoquées Même le fonctionnement des vaccins semble curieusement expliqué.

La seconde moitié du roman explore l'avènement d'un monde presque entièrement privé d'hommes. Les femmes doivent se débrouiller pour faire fonctionner la société et l'économie, et elles s'en tirent plutôt bien, ce qui n'est pas sans rappeler la thèse du roman The Disappearance (1951) de Philip Wylie. L'équivalent d'une économie de guerre est instauré, mais l'autrice évite d'en faire une utopie féministe, même si les objets du quotidien (médicaments, uniformes, voitures) sont transformés pour mieux répondre aux besoins des femmes. La société qui se dessine peut rappeler celle des Chroniques du Pays des Mères (1992) d'Élisabeth Vonarburg, mais le roman ne se projette pas assez loin dans l'avenir pour en esquisser un portrait aussi complet.

Sweeney-Baird entrecroise les destins de nombreux personnages au cœur du drame, pour la plupart des femmes. La pandémie est mondiale, mais le récit se concentre sur les événements en Grande-Bretagne, aux États-Unis et au Canada, malgré quelques aperçus de la situation ailleurs. Les protagonistes luttent ou souffrent, ou les deux, et elles sont généralement dignes d'intérêt. Malgré la dimension chorale de la narration, deux d'entre elles se détachent, Amanda et Catherine, la première découvrant la maladie et la seconde livrant à la fin le bilan des témoignages qu'elle a recueillis durant les années de peste.

La principale méchante est aussi une femme, soit la chercheuse canadienne qui a le mauvais goût de découvrir un vaccin avant tout le monde et de vouloir le monnayer, contrairement à ses prédécesseurs à la même Université de Toronto, qui avaient vendu les droits sur l'insuline pour un dollar symoblique. L'épisode laisse songeur dans un contexte où de multiples vaccins distincts ont été développés pour contrer la Covid-19 tandis que le Canada n'a brillé ni dans la découverte ni dans la production de vaccins. Mais Sweeney-Baird en fait un personnage complexe et elle démontre moins de compréhension pour quelques hommes dont elle met en scène le comportement abject. Roman sur la quasi-disparition de la moitié de l'humanité, The End of Men est moins le compte rendu d'une catastrophe qu'une réflexion sur la perte, les tentatives de l'éviter et les manières de lui survivre.

In: Solaris 219 (Summer 2021), pp. 157-159.

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“Leah,

Found your e-mail online. Realised that you forgot to give it to me on the phone after you said to e-mail you. I’ve just arrived home from my shift. When I left there were nineteen live patients in A and E all showing symptoms of what I think is a virus (antibiotics made no difference although obviously need pathology to confirm what’s going on. Is that easier for your lab to do over at HPS or is it quicker for us to just crack on here at Gartnavel?) Of the twenty-six I think we’ve seen so far, five died before I left the hospital. One man, the first I saw, from the Isle of Bute two days ago. Fraser McAlpine this afternoon. Three other men died quickly after coming in, including one of my junior doctors, Ross.

They’re all men. Too small a sample size so far obviously but I’ve never seen that before. Maybe men are more vulnerable to it? Can we have a call to discuss all of this please, also maybe loop someone more senior in? This is very bad, Leah. You need to understand how quickly the disease affects them. They go from having normal flu symptoms and feeling quite unwell to being dead with a temperature of over 109 degrees in a few hours.

Please get back to me as soon as you can.

Amanda”

On “Day 1,” a man dies for no clear reason in a Glasgow hospital. After a second man dies there two days later and more fall ill, attending physician Amanda MacLean senses impending disaster. By Day 5, “the Plague,” though still limited to Scotland, “is all anybody can talk about” in London. And so the Plague spreads, day by day within eight sections designating stages from “Outbreak” to “Panic” to “Adaptation” to “Remembrance”.

All females are either immune or carriers; nine out of ten males—ninety percent —from infants upward fall dead within two days of contact.

“The End of Men” is powerful and thought provoking, however, due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, I do not recommend it for sensitive readers.

Synopsis

Set in a world where a virus stalks our male population, “The End of Men” is an electrifying and unforgettable debut from a remarkable new talent that asks: what would life truly look like without men?

Only men are affected by the virus; only women have the power to save us all. 

The year is 2025, and a mysterious virus has broken out in Scotland — a lethal illness that seems to affect only men. When Dr. Amanda MacLean reports this phenomenon, she is dismissed as hysterical. By the time her warning is heeded, it is too late. The virus becomes a global pandemic — and a political one. The victims are all men. The world becomes alien — a women's world. 

What follows is the immersive of the women who have been left to deal with the virus's consequences, told through first-person narratives. Dr. MacLean; Catherine, a social historian determined to document the human stories behind the "male plague;" intelligence analyst Dawn, tasked with helping the government forge a new society; and Elizabeth, one of many scientists desperately working to develop a vaccine. Through these women and others, we see the uncountable ways the absence of men has changed society, from the personal — the loss of husbands and sons — to the political — the changes in the workforce, fertility and the meaning of family. 

In “The End of Men”, Christina Sweeney-Baird creates an unforgettable tale of loss, resilience and hope.

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This title intrigued me! I loved the plot so much because especially in these pandemic times, it really makes you think about what other pandemics could have happened rather than this one. It was very interesting.

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While not without its flaws, I quite enjoyed this book and read it in just a few days. The premise captured my attention immediately and given our current world circumstances, this story seemed quite fitting. In a nutshell, The End of Men is a story about a pandemic that breaks out in Scotland and quickly starts to wipe out the majority of the male population. It follows several different characters and sometimes I had trouble differentiating between them. And from what I’ve gathered from other reviews, the science involved in this book is quite inaccurate but honestly, that part doesn’t bother me as this book is fiction and it was entertaining and kept me turning pages and that’s all I really ask for in a book! I also found it very interesting to see how a world/society repairs itself when most of the male population is wiped out. How do you fill jobs that were predominantly held by the male population? How do you repopulate? All very interesting things to discuss!

Thank you to netgalley for the advanced digital copy!

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The premise of this novel is a pandemic virus that attacks only males and is nearly always fatal. It descends upon the world with incredible speed and nearly wipes out the male population before a vaccine can be developed.
What fascinated me about this story is the social repercussions - at last women are able, and required, to take on all the roles and professions that males have predominantly occupied throughout history. In fact, in order for humanity to survive, all women must work. The result, not surprisingly, is a much more peaceful and co-operative world. Other social and psychological issues are explored, such as grief and lonliness and the attitudes of and toward those few men who are immune or survive. A lot of thought has been put into this novel and it is all the more interesting and unique because of that.
On the down side, in order to explore so many societal issues and attitudes, the book has a huge cast of characters. Each chapter is from a different point of view, and only a few of the characters repeat, which makes the story somewhat difficult to follow. I was constantly asking myself, 'have I seen this character before?' and trying to keep the continuing story of those that did repeat clear in my mind while juggling the single-chapter characters added in to show a particular issue or development. It was a bit confusing, to say the least.
Nevertheless it is an interesting premise, thoroughly examined, and a compelling, thought-provoking read. I recommend it.

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(Forgive me while I try to catch up on ARCs that I just couldn’t finish up before their publication dates!)

4.5 stars

I’ll be honest: I was not expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. I’m a sucker for dystopian stories about world-altering pandemics, apparently, and it would seem like a real-life pandemic didn’t change that. This book was fascinating. It had a ton of different character perspectives, it built suspense, it made me laugh, and it had me flying through the story. I would have appreciated some discussion about sex versus gender earlier on in the book, but I understand why the writer may have thought it didn’t fit, and I’m glad that more along those lines was addressed later on in the novel. Overall, it was a good story that was timely in a lot of ways, and I wish I would’ve gotten to it sooner.

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thank you @netgalley for access to this book!

what i am about to say if a very strong statement but… this may be one of the best books i’ve ever read.
the story about a pandemic that only kills men is a bit terrifying due to the world we are living in, but the story is inspiring. it shows how women can do hard things (thanks glennon), how women are made of much tougher stuff than anyone gives them credit for, how we can run the world, and most importantly, how fragile men truly are. there are a couple of the male characters that you truly want to punch in the face.
if you feel like this one may be tough to swallow, please pick up a copy and feel inspired.
we all need this story right now more than ever.

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A book about a very unique end of the world as we know it kind of situation, we get to see everything happening through a multitude of different women. From reporters and doctors to stay at home mothers, and everything in between, all of it just really works well together. When a modern day plague takes out most of the world’s population of men, women are forced to stand up tall and take the world’s problems into their own hands, or face something worse, complete extinction.

After the first cases are discovered by her in her own workplace, Amanda is cast aside as an unhinged woman, ignored by her peers and bosses and health care professionals. This causes the virus to spiral out of control. But by the time that everyone else realizes that she was right, it’s much too late. We basically get to watch the world fall apart from Europe and eventually everywhere else in the world, in first person, as they struggle to put everything back together and right the world again, while also struggling through the loss of all the men and boys in their lives.

I think that this was a very well put together and interesting book with lifelike characters, the makings for a really great book. Everyone’s just trying to survive this huge loss and put the world back together, and I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. Of course I would love a new take on an apocalypse book, though. So if you’re a mature reader and think that you would love this, check it out! Who knows? You might love it just as much as I did.

(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

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I absolutely loved this book! It is incredibly timely given the global pandemic and not hard to imagine the situations represented in this book. I loved all the different perspectives and the technical true to life details of imagined situations. All the characters felt real and human, my heartstrings were pulled numerous times.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone!

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I did not get the opportunity to read this ARC before it was archived. I’ve got The End of Men on my summer read list. My rating is based on my wanting to read the book, and the averaged rating, but I hadn’t been able to make it a priority.

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At the time when our world is in the clutches of a virus, I thought reading Ms. Sweeney-Baird's novel quite appropriate. Mesmerizing and thought-provoking, in this book this virus is targeting men. Through the thoughts and experiences of many women, the far-reaching consequences are presented in this well-written novel. Recommended reading.

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An amazing read, completed before the pandemic! It starts with a young nurse in Scotland recognizing a pandemic after several male patients die. It is highly contagious and can be spread by women, but only males get it. She goes home takes her kids out of school, isolates her husband and informs health units and news people around the world, but nobody takes her seriously until it is too late and the virus has spread.
A fascinating book which I hope you will read even if you feel you need to wait until our Covid pandemic is over.

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This novel would be a chilling read in any year but during the COVID pandemic it’s both a terrifying worst-case and a relief that we – human civilization – dodged even greater disaster. It’s a horrifying tale while not a horror story.

Reminiscent of WORLD WAR Z (the book, not the movie)in style, the story unfolds through flashbacks, emails, snippets from blogs, accounts of meetings, with only a few real-time narrators throughout. The last group are rendered in understated prose that conveys psychological trauma response better than more graphic descriptions or reactions might. This separation of time& distance makes for a less emotionally fraught view of the many horrors but allows for a broader worldview, geographically centered in the UK with glimpses into US and Asian-Pacific government and societal reactions.

A striking feature of this book is the centrality of female perspectives, politics, and coping mechanisms. As the men in positions of power and authority start to drop like flies or go into isolation to try to protect themselves from near-certain death, women adapt, reorganize, step in and step up to keep society functioning. The absence of the male-model single heroic figure beloved of movie directors (the Brad Pitt, in WWZ) and too many novels is stark. Success comes from a small number of women going beyond duty or personal responsibility, but also from the tireless work of thousands in research labs and bureaucracies, of millions of ordinary women running their towns and villages.

The male characters – all but one seen through the eyes of women who work for them, love them, or despise them - are a varied lot,some good, some bad, many mediocre, but all recognizable to most female readers.The women characters are only a bit more thoroughly sketched in. Apart from Catherine, the Plague’s almost accidental recording angel, we don’t get deeply or long into their minds or hearts, and on the whole there’s no need to. Women readers can easily fill in the emotional and psychological underpinnings. As with the men, we’ve all met and worked with and been related to those women, met them at the school gate. We’ve loved and hated them, envied their seemingly perfect lives or been thankful our life, our financial footing, our relationship, is stronger.

While there are valid critiques about the lack of depth regarding LGBTQ2S+ characters and the various regions’ political and militaristic responses, both get mentioned and in ways that admit to the complexity of their specific situations. To add more in those areas would be to distance readers further from the central threat to humanity’s survival, and the mechanisms by which the restructured, women-led states tackle the resulting sex imbalance to preserve the genetic diversity of our own species.

Those mechanisms are not the stuff of hearts-and-flowers,sisters-together anti-male Eutopias some male readers might anticipate. They’re practical and often ruthlessly implemented. Not all women agree. Not all women program heads are approachable or warm. A woman in this fictional universe can be brilliant and ambitious and personally unlikeable and still win accolades, like men can in the real world.While there’s more than enough loss to go around, the book ends on a series of small hopeful notes as characters who have survived the unthinkable gradually let their grief settle and move forward.

If the tale unfolded like WORLD WAR Z (the book), it ends like CHILDREN OF MEN (the movie), with new life, new relationships, raising children in a world unlike anything humanity has ever experienced before.

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I will admit it was a little weird to choose to read a book about a pandemic during a pandemic. But it was interesting to compare what was happening in the book to what was happening in our world right now.

A virus that only infects men starts in Scotland and quickly spreads around the world as women are asymptomatic carriers. Thousands of men start dying and one doctor, Amanda, who treated the very first patient with the virus, tried to warn WHO before it got out of control. But much like many other women, Amanda was deemed unreliable and ultimately ignored.

The book is told through many women's point of views from around the world, including Amanda, who have lost the men in their lives to this virus. Also told through many mediums, such as journal entries, news articles, and first person povs.

It was really well written and all the povs important and impactful. I would definitely recommend this book.

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This book is a good, fast-paced read. It’s a bit creepy to read about a pandemic that kills about 90% of men in the middle of a pandemic; you can also appreciate how much the author got right! The story unfolds through the voices of a number of women over a number of years, as we see how the pandemic unfolds and what happens to their lives during the race for a vaccine, and the aftermath. Recommended!

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