gilda_elise

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 account 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.

One of the best apocalyptic novels I’ve read. There’s only the virus; no zombies, no camps of fighters, just what happens when a virus takes hold and takes out a large segment of the population. That is tragedy enough; for those who die, and for those left behind. Their grief is palpable.

What made it more interesting was seeing events just through the eyes of women. How much differently things happen when so many who have been shunted aside are given a voice. Some of the women are extraordinary; some are like so many of us. Going about their daily lives, never dreaming of what will be asked of them.

The work to develop a vaccine gives the reader a similar view to what the world went through with COVID. That things aren’t as simple as much of the population believes. That it’s not a straight line, but many different roads, so many of which are dead ends. For not other reason, this is a book to be read, especially by those who think something is a conspiracy when answers aren’t immediately forthcoming.

I eagerly look forward to reading the author’s next book.