Anonymous
Post 02/13/2026 09:26     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I recently finished the book as well. After seeing it mentioned all over BookTok, I felt compelled to read it. I didn’t love it!

I understand it to be a philosophical think piece, but it didn’t land for me. Sure, I had questions: Who? What? Where? Why? But from a psychological standpoint, and coming from someone who worksas a psych major and as someone who works in the field) everything else makes complete sense, especially when considering everything we know about the mind and psyche.


I didn't think the where, when, why mattered at all to the book. To me it was about what it means to create your identity and live your life and interpret your desires and find purpose without cultural influence or society or even company.

I’m not sure she exists outside culture or society—she’s formed within the bunker’s own distorted version of both. That world provides her first language of fear, routine, and relationship. When she later loses it, she experiences the same rupture the older women felt upon entering the cage: the loss of a shared framework that made the self coherent.


I thought she's very much outside the culture of the bunker both in experience and ability. She is forming her own identity in part in opposition to the women but also as someone whose formative experiences are relatively blank until she encounters the cage. I agree, maybe not without culture or society but within and opposed to one that is fractured and partial.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 19:14     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:I recently finished the book as well. After seeing it mentioned all over BookTok, I felt compelled to read it. I didn’t love it!

I understand it to be a philosophical think piece, but it didn’t land for me. Sure, I had questions: Who? What? Where? Why? But from a psychological standpoint, and coming from someone who worksas a psych major and as someone who works in the field) everything else makes complete sense, especially when considering everything we know about the mind and psyche.

I felt the same way! The Child felt strangely like a pick me. Even in the cage, she was oddly wise beyond her years and intelligence level. It didn’t add up. No one had taught her anything yet she was so precocious and blatantly sassy?

I get the Holocaust connection. I get the philosophical questions. But I just didn’t find it that deep. And I agree, the most thought provoking questions WERE the who/what/when/where/how. Everything else is basic Homo sapien brain functioning.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 17:01     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
No reason to keep reading if you aren't finding it compelling so far, OP. It's OK to put a book down. It's a mind-exercise kind of book, not a story.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 16:04     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:There will be SPOILERS!

I’m about 1/3 of the way through the book and

!!!SPOILERS!!!

feel sort of let down that they’ve escaped the bunker and are just wandering around a deserted plain. I know people love this book and some even claim it’s THE book they can’t stop recommending, but I’m growing a little bored. And it feels like the climax has already happened, yet I have 100 more pages? Does something else spectacular happen soon? Should I keep at it?


Don't ever read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, lol.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 16:01     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I recently finished the book as well. After seeing it mentioned all over BookTok, I felt compelled to read it. I didn’t love it!

I understand it to be a philosophical think piece, but it didn’t land for me. Sure, I had questions: Who? What? Where? Why? But from a psychological standpoint, and coming from someone who worksas a psych major and as someone who works in the field) everything else makes complete sense, especially when considering everything we know about the mind and psyche.


I didn't think the where, when, why mattered at all to the book. To me it was about what it means to create your identity and live your life and interpret your desires and find purpose without cultural influence or society or even company.

I’m not sure she exists outside culture or society—she’s formed within the bunker’s own distorted version of both. That world provides her first language of fear, routine, and relationship. When she later loses it, she experiences the same rupture the older women felt upon entering the cage: the loss of a shared framework that made the self coherent.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 13:47     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:I recently finished the book as well. After seeing it mentioned all over BookTok, I felt compelled to read it. I didn’t love it!

I understand it to be a philosophical think piece, but it didn’t land for me. Sure, I had questions: Who? What? Where? Why? But from a psychological standpoint, and coming from someone who worksas a psych major and as someone who works in the field) everything else makes complete sense, especially when considering everything we know about the mind and psyche.


I didn't think the where, when, why mattered at all to the book. To me it was about what it means to create your identity and live your life and interpret your desires and find purpose without cultural influence or society or even company.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 11:59     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
I recently finished the book as well. After seeing it mentioned all over BookTok, I felt compelled to read it. I didn’t love it!

I understand it to be a philosophical think piece, but it didn’t land for me. Sure, I had questions: Who? What? Where? Why? But from a psychological standpoint, and coming from someone who worksas a psych major and as someone who works in the field) everything else makes complete sense, especially when considering everything we know about the mind and psyche.
Anonymous
Post 02/10/2026 13:43     Subject: Re:I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
To answer your question, I wouldn't say anything spectacular happens, but like a PP I just felt it gave me so much to think about and left a lot of room to interpret in many different ways. I really loved it.
Anonymous
Post 02/10/2026 11:12     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:Is there no plot? PP, is it purely philosophical? I keep seeing this book mentioned everywhere.


There isn't much plot, no. There are still things that will happen in the story after the 1/3 mark but it's not going to start moving all of a sudden or have a lot of action. It's also short so I'd recommend keeping going. Maybe it's not for you but it really hit me hard in the second half.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2026 16:24     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
PP again.

It's both philosophical and a "choose your own adventure"/finish in your head book. My sister and I went into different answers to make peace with the open-endedness. We both came from very different perspectives on what is happening, where and why.

Underneath all of that are some strong currents of humanity that remain consistent despite the plot and environment.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2026 16:21     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:Is there no plot? PP, is it purely philosophical? I keep seeing this book mentioned everywhere.


There is a loose plot. 40 women are in an underground bunker. We don't know why. They don't know why. One day the bunker doors are opened and the guards are gone.

That's the plot. The rest is philosophical raising more questions than answers. I don't think there is much of a spoiler there, that all happens very quickly.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2026 16:18     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Is there no plot? PP, is it purely philosophical? I keep seeing this book mentioned everywhere.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2026 15:56     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
Anonymous wrote:So I loved it, but I acknowledge it's not for everyone. Does it get better? That's hard to say. It's a philosophical book. For me it opened up so many questions and thought exercises (worm holes if you will) in my brain. I have notes, highlights, questions that I physically had to write down. I read it twice with a few days break in between so I could go over everything.

I'd love to take a college class on it.

I’m getting a bit of that with certain things. Maybe I’m just not far enough in yet? I just can’t imagine what else happens!
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2026 15:37     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
So I loved it, but I acknowledge it's not for everyone. Does it get better? That's hard to say. It's a philosophical book. For me it opened up so many questions and thought exercises (worm holes if you will) in my brain. I have notes, highlights, questions that I physically had to write down. I read it twice with a few days break in between so I could go over everything.

I'd love to take a college class on it.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2026 14:06     Subject: I Who Have Never Known Men—does it get better?
There will be SPOILERS!

I’m about 1/3 of the way through the book and

!!!SPOILERS!!!

feel sort of let down that they’ve escaped the bunker and are just wandering around a deserted plain. I know people love this book and some even claim it’s THE book they can’t stop recommending, but I’m growing a little bored. And it feels like the climax has already happened, yet I have 100 more pages? Does something else spectacular happen soon? Should I keep at it?