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MATRIARCHY
The attempted assassination of the first female president of the United States during her inauguration speech in 2024 leads to a revolution. Fifty years later, Matriarchy follows Althea Hayworth and Michael Nolan’s journey to understanding the ways in which their matriarchal society has demonized heterosexuality and male-female interactions, ousted men from all positions of political power, and made men into second-class citizens. As Althea learns the untold history of the world from Michael, she questions whether the matriarchy is the utopia that she has been taught to believe it is and if marrying Felicity, her fiancée, is the best decision. As she struggles with her choices, she grapples with a group of men's rights activists fighting for their rights, a tyrannical mother who refuses to tolerate her daughter’s newfound voice, and a court case that leaves her and Michael wrestling with a justice system that assumes the guilt of any man who walks into it.
415 pages, Paperback
Published August 6, 2020
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 1, 2024
I never write long reviews, but buckle up for this wild ride.
Maybe I just don't get it, or maybe it's deeper than my shallow self can understand, but it's a weird story. It is set in a future where the patriarchy is flipped and women are in control. What I was not expecting was for the women to be so horrible. The main character, Althea, is awful. She's a rapist and a narcissist. She cheats on her fiance and has an affair with a man, which is very taboo in this society. Everyone is EXPECTED to be homosexual and if you're not, you're the problem. Her mother Natalia is also a horrible, deranged narcissist who assaults her own wife (Althea's other mom) and happens to be high up in government and can get away with anything. When Natalia finds out Althea is with this man, she and her wife break into his house and rape him. Yes, her 2 moms rape her illicit lover. What?? And then they accuse him of raping Althea. He gets arrested, tortured, and eventually convicted of the crime he never committed. His punishment is lifelong forced labor, forced living organ donation, and castration. Meanwhile, Althea talks a lot of shit about how much she doesn't like or agree with her mom, but ultimately doesn't do a damn thing to stop what happens. She just goes along with Natalia's plot and testifies against him in a rigged trial. Her fiance sees all of this and still stays with her, even after the sham trial goes to shit. The book ends with him waking up from surgery and realizing his dick is gone. The end. Wtf??
There are so many things I didn't like. I didn't like how the whole book was written one individual sentence at a time, line by line. The few paragraphs in the whole book are just dialogue. There was no reason for it to be 400 pages. Also, every other word is written in italics or bolded. Why? Stop it. The characters are not really explained very well. You just read a new name in a chapter with no context and have to figure out who they are. The chapters are from different peoples perspectives but are not labeled as such; they're just numbered. That was a bit confusing. But most of all, the main character is terrible. You can't like a story if you hate the main character. She raped a young teenager in a male brothel on numerous occasions. Then she cheats on and ignores her fiance, yet the fiance has no backbone whatsoever and just takes it. She doesn't leave or do or say anything about the horrible way she is treated. Then Althea does nothing whatsoever to stand up against her crazy ass mother and basically ensures that her lover is convicted when she knows he didn't do it. She doesn't want to defy her mother, of course. In the end, she curls up in bed with her fiance like nothing happened. She experiences absolutely no consequences for any of her actions. She's awful. Like mother, like daughter.
I did like the concept. It is very interesting to see women in power over every aspect of society but disheartening to see women portrayed so badly. This book is every man's nightmare come true of if women ever did take control. It paints a very bleak picture of an imagined matriarchal future. If anything, I think it sets us back in terms of progress because this will scare any man into further maintaining the current patriarchal status quo. I loved that it took the idea of the horrible things men get away with now and flipped it. So women get away with doing horrible stuff and receiving no consequences for any of it. It's extra terrible coming from a woman's perspective because we are not used to seeing women portrayed like that. I loved the idea of this book so much. The way it was written just didn't jive with me. I would still recommend it, though.
Maybe I just don't get it, or maybe it's deeper than my shallow self can understand, but it's a weird story. It is set in a future where the patriarchy is flipped and women are in control. What I was not expecting was for the women to be so horrible. The main character, Althea, is awful. She's a rapist and a narcissist. She cheats on her fiance and has an affair with a man, which is very taboo in this society. Everyone is EXPECTED to be homosexual and if you're not, you're the problem. Her mother Natalia is also a horrible, deranged narcissist who assaults her own wife (Althea's other mom) and happens to be high up in government and can get away with anything. When Natalia finds out Althea is with this man, she and her wife break into his house and rape him. Yes, her 2 moms rape her illicit lover. What?? And then they accuse him of raping Althea. He gets arrested, tortured, and eventually convicted of the crime he never committed. His punishment is lifelong forced labor, forced living organ donation, and castration. Meanwhile, Althea talks a lot of shit about how much she doesn't like or agree with her mom, but ultimately doesn't do a damn thing to stop what happens. She just goes along with Natalia's plot and testifies against him in a rigged trial. Her fiance sees all of this and still stays with her, even after the sham trial goes to shit. The book ends with him waking up from surgery and realizing his dick is gone. The end. Wtf??
There are so many things I didn't like. I didn't like how the whole book was written one individual sentence at a time, line by line. The few paragraphs in the whole book are just dialogue. There was no reason for it to be 400 pages. Also, every other word is written in italics or bolded. Why? Stop it. The characters are not really explained very well. You just read a new name in a chapter with no context and have to figure out who they are. The chapters are from different peoples perspectives but are not labeled as such; they're just numbered. That was a bit confusing. But most of all, the main character is terrible. You can't like a story if you hate the main character. She raped a young teenager in a male brothel on numerous occasions. Then she cheats on and ignores her fiance, yet the fiance has no backbone whatsoever and just takes it. She doesn't leave or do or say anything about the horrible way she is treated. Then Althea does nothing whatsoever to stand up against her crazy ass mother and basically ensures that her lover is convicted when she knows he didn't do it. She doesn't want to defy her mother, of course. In the end, she curls up in bed with her fiance like nothing happened. She experiences absolutely no consequences for any of her actions. She's awful. Like mother, like daughter.
I did like the concept. It is very interesting to see women in power over every aspect of society but disheartening to see women portrayed so badly. This book is every man's nightmare come true of if women ever did take control. It paints a very bleak picture of an imagined matriarchal future. If anything, I think it sets us back in terms of progress because this will scare any man into further maintaining the current patriarchal status quo. I loved that it took the idea of the horrible things men get away with now and flipped it. So women get away with doing horrible stuff and receiving no consequences for any of it. It's extra terrible coming from a woman's perspective because we are not used to seeing women portrayed like that. I loved the idea of this book so much. The way it was written just didn't jive with me. I would still recommend it, though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review