I Who Have Never Known Peace from Goodreads Users

I'm moving some of my Goodreads reviews from the Bezos Books Factory to this blog. This is my review of I Who Have Never Known Men (1995) by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from French by Ros Schwartz. I read this in December 2024 for a book club. I didn't even go to the book club meeting, but I did eventually read the book. I didn't know at the time that this book had become a sensation almost 30 years after publication thanks to TikTok.

These backfilled book reviews will be members-only, from the free tier and up.

Why do humans not just survive, but live? Will we ever find out if we are alone in the universe? Is there any point in trying to find out? What do we owe to older generations, and how do they hold us back from progress? What does it mean to be human? You wouldn’t think a book this slim could tackle all of these existential questions, but Harpman does tackle them and she does it very well. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I can even see it being a re-read every couple of years.