I Who Have Never Known Men

The most beautifully written ending I have ever witnessed. The prose is immaculate, it's described as ‘cool water' in the introduction, and I agree. It has a smooth, breezy, calm, collected flow to it until the very end when Jacqueline Harpman starts firing on all cylinders. The writing and passion are dialed up to a whole new level and pure emotion emanates from deep within the heart. She saved the best for the last and you feel the ignition, nothing is held back. It's fiery, magnificent and hauntingly poetic. It felt personal, like she did not want to go down without a fight. That as this bleak tale set in a bleak world draws to its eventual end and the spark starts to fizzle out, some aftershocks must be left that will continue to reverberate for years to come.

Perhaps never to go down without a fight is what this book is about, at least that is what I will take away from it. No matter if the world is stripped away of all its familiar warmth and comfort and be basically rendered sterile, we can find a way to look death right in the eye and exhibit beauty even in the direst of circumstances.