The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (The Road to Nowhere 1) Kindle Edition

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is about death, survival, lust, power, pain, hope, and hopelessness.A woman gets sick with a high fever from an autoimmune disease, and wakes up to find the world population has been decimated. An autoimmune disease has killed 98% of Earth's population of men and 99% of Earth's population of women. There are very few children left.Women who were pregnant when they got sick delivered stillborn babies and most women die during childbirth. There are only a handful of survivors left and the men hold all the power. The odds of surviving a pregnancy have gone to zero with no children being born in the year after the disease wiped everyone out. Women are scarce and those who have been found are chained and used for sex and breeding.Amongst the chaos, an unnamed midwife who was a former nurse picks her way through the ruins of a world that is dead and in utter chaos. She knows instinctively that it is dangerous to be a woman right now. She does as much as possible to look like a man. She learns to move like a man, binds her chest, lowers her voice, wears men's clothing, darkens her jaw line, answers to many different names, and avoids as many people as possible."Walk tall, keep hips straight. Don’t sway. Feet flat. Hunch a little, arms straight down. Don’t gesture. Stare down. Make fists while talking. Sit with knees apart. Adjust. Don’t tilt your head. Don’t bite your lip. Interrupt. Laugh low.Rub jawline. Don’t look down. Stand in front of the mirror. Have a dick. Great big dick. Fear me. Always right. Kick your ass. No right to stand in my way. Who’s gonna stop me? Like that, bitch? Yeah.Bitch, I am a man. Females. Talk too much. Quit crying. So emotional. Be a man. Man up. Nut up. Jump shot, gunshot, cum shot, money shot. Posing but not to be sexy. Scare me. Lean a little forward. Invade my space. Quit crying. Give you something to cry about."This is one of the most interesting and absorbing books I've read in a long time. The protagonist of the story, an unnamed midwife, is a gutsy woman who only wants to survive. She doesn't want to hope, but finds that hope keeps creeping in despite the fact that she has tried her best to harden her heart against the thought of future generations.Despite the fact that the odds are against humanity, she creates a written history of her journey in a post-apocalyptic world that will survive her for generations to come.The main theme of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is seen in its emphasis on giving women birth control options and keeping them safe. One of the first things the midwife does after she leaves San Francisco is to create an arsenal of birth control. She carries as much birth control and Depo-Provera shots as she can and gives them to the leashed women she meets on the road by masquerading as a man and 'bargaining or trading' with medicine and food for sexual favors from these chained women.When she gets them alone, she gives them birth control so that they do not get pregnant and die during childbirth or deliver stillborn babies.Readers should know there are a lot of traumatic events that happen in this book starting with rape and murder, abuse, genital mutilation, sex trafficking, stillbirths, and more. It is a grim tale that isn't full of a lot of hope. But, there is some hope in how she survives and helps others to survive.I loved how we got to see how gender roles play out in this book as well, since the protagonist is constantly pretending she is a man. She meets women on the road who are safe with her and as soon as they come across other men who seem friendly and open to protecting them, the women leave her to go off with their knight in shining armor, only to meet with disaster later.Our unnamed midwife continues to avoid people in general and stays away from getting sucked into groups of people, mainly because she has good cause to be suspicious of everyone.She is also open about her sexuality, identifying as bisexual. During her journey across the country, she also meets a few people who can be trusted and she learns that everyone reacts differently to the new world around them. These people make an impact on her life, despite her efforts to avoid human contact.I loved the harsh, beautiful writing and realism presented in this novel. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is one of the scariest dystopian books I've read. It's also very thought-provoking and meaningful in its stark and very dark narrative.The Book of the Unnamed Midwife was one of my favorite reads of 2018. It's $3.99 on Amazon Kindle right now.Best Takeaway Quotes"Dusty did not want to hope. She tried to keep hope out of her, shutting all the doors and locking them with the keys of reason and evidence and precedent. Still, she could feel it seeping in, incorporeal and deathless, refusing to be refused." ~Meg Elison"Some people had been waiting their whole lives to live lawlessly, and they were the first to take to the streets. Some people knew that would happen; they knew better than to open their doors when they heard cries of help. Others didn’t. What disease cannot do, people accomplish with astonishing ease." ~Meg Elison“Yeah, but what if you found some people? A guy who could take care of you? He could defend you, hunt for food so you don’t have to? What are you gonna do when canned goods run out and you gotta shoot deer to live?” I just shot six guys. Did she just forget that?" ~Meg Elison“I’m never going to get married. Neither are you. Neither are any of the brothers here, unless the missionaries bring home girls. Those kids can marry each other, have kids of their own. Nobody can get in the way of that. They’re the only thing we have that looks like a future.” His eyes blazed as the room warmed up. He closed the door to the little stove and stared her down, daring her to argue. Hidden children. Flowers in the attic." ~Meg Elison“I would be happy to defend you ladies,” Duke said with a shine in his eyes. Every man on Earth thinks his dick is magic." ~Meg ElisonThe library had been painstakingly collected and was maintained by people who cared for books beyond all things. No books could leave that building; reading could only be done there. ~Meg Elison

I don’t normally review books which I know is bad but this one deserves the time. I realize it’s won several awards and that is Well deserved.I don’t want to give any spoilers but I will just say that this book is not your normal post apocalyptic 99 cent book on kindle. It is worth every penny if you pay for it and keep it in your library.I am getting ready to buy the second one now and can only say that this is incredible writing, very different type of storytelling and overall just could not have enjoyed this book more.I would say to compare it if you enjoyed The Passage Trilogy by Justin Cronin you would most likely enjoy this. Though there is absolutely no similarities in the “big baddies” if you will. (This is not a supernatural book or a tale of horror.) The books just have a similar feel to me. If you haven’t read them check them out.

I listen to the audio book while doing chores and there were multiple times I had to pace cause I was stressed the hell out! This book is grim and sad, it is hopeless and desolate; it will also help you reach your step goal cause it is a page turner!

Kept me invested right out of the gate. I enjoyed this book because the tone was perfect and the narrator created a sense of calm in the middle of chaos, pain, suffering, madness and fear.

The book was amazing. The only thing I didn't like was the font for the journals - very hard to read. Had to wear my glasses AND make the text as large as possible. Was reading in my phone, so your experience may vary depending on the device used.

Well written and conceived world. All at once beautiful, devastating, hopeful, hopeless. Clever, insightful. Not one character useless. Well drawn. Will look for future works. Thank you.

This is one of the many books I bought immediately after reading a sample, especially since it was only $1.99.  The trope of "last people at the end of the world" is common, of course, but the writing was so raw and realistic, I couldn't help but be intrigued.  The "end" comes due to a pandemic (...) but it kills more than 90% of the population, mostly women and children, utterly destroying any semblance of civilization...and I mean that literally with regards to the term "civilized."The titular midwife learns to perform toxic masculinity in order to survive unmolested, and while part of me wants to believe things wouldn't turn out like this, another more realistic/pessimistic part of me knows it's true: if there were no institutional pillars to curtail it, r*pe and forced birth would be a horrifying reality for the survivors.   I mean it already is for a large portion of the population, so imagine if there weren't any laws against it (granted those laws only protect a certain swath of victims, but that's a whole other discussion).While I was very much engaged with the midwife's story and crusade to provide birth control, I had to DNF after the section titled "The Book of Roxanne."  It describes a harrowing experience of childbirth and is absolutely gutting.So I, in now way, did not finish this because it's poorly written.  I had to DNF because it was too real.  Meg Elison has written one of the most realistic depictions of the world after an apocalyptic pandemic since The Last of Us (don't @ me...I mean the response to it not the cause), though in Elison's  story it works along assigned gender lines.  It's nightmarish if you have a uterus, and yet nothing in either history or current events makes it ring untrue.  The unnamed midwife's goal is to give out birth control, because that's the only thing she can offer: the ability to (possibly) curtail birth, not the assault that would cause it.This book contains r*pe/sexual assault, graphic descriptions of childbirth/death in childbirth, genital mutilation, suicide, disease, and is just generally grimdark.  It's an important book that needs to be in the zeitgeist, but no one should harm themselves by reading something potentially damaging.  I do highly recommend it if you're able to stomach it.I'm going to check out other books by this author and follow her here and elsewhere on the internet.

Official disclaimer: I'm well-versed in feminist writing and have no major objections to its principles, or to its contentions. With this in mind, I cannot in good conscience recommend this book.Ms. Elison's novel starts with a conventional premise: a plague wipes out the human race apart from a hardy few who prove to be naturally immune. Her story splits between an epistolary format - a collection of journal entries, in this case - and a standard first-person account. If only an inconsistent narrative voice were the worst of the novel's faults.Our main character is a nurse who travels the North American wasteland and dispenses medical advice. This could have been engaging, but the author indulges her prejudice. Every man in the book is either a member of a rape-gang, or a naive religionist. Every woman is either the victim of a rape-gang, an independent loner, or ... a naive religionist. You can't develop characters if there aren't any to develop.I lost faith when it came to the story of Duke. He appears on the back of a motorcycle and dresses like a Hells Angel. Despite this, he's a compassionate soul who wants to look after the women as they cross the post-apocalyptic mess. Our nurse resists, but her female companion relents, finding Duke to be devilishly handsome. What happens? Duke and the companion go alone ... and fall foul of a rape-gang, the woman dying in solitary confinement many months later - according to a brief summary.This could have been an unfortunate turn, were it not for the conversation prior to their departure. Our main character maintains that, even though Duke is physically superior and armed, the female companion would be safer in her company, despite the nurse's lack of combat experience. Duke and his lady-love suffer not so much from hubris as from the author's desire to teach a pseudo-feminist lesson with the aid of 'deus ex machina'.What is the moral of this story? Sisters must do it for themselves. Women who travel with men - even decent men who would never dream of violating them - will become victims of predation. Thus, women must band together, protect themselves from male monsters, and raise the next generation of boys in the arts of nursing and midwifery - hence the novel's title. (Our main character's journal becomes the Holy Book of a secular, feminist religion, which is no doubt discussed in the sequels that I'll never bother to read.)In summary, Ms. Elison fancies herself as a feminist writer, but is guilty of female chauvinism, which is just as toxic and as odious as its male equivalent. Please avoid this book.

I had bought this one from Amazon UK back in December 2017 so it had been sat waiting on my kindle for me to get around to reading it for a while. I think it was one of those books I had bought and then forgot about! I had just finished reading a couple of books that had pregnancy as a major subject within them and I fancied reading something similar and whilst aimlessly searching by kindle for reading inspiration I came across The Unnamed Midwife and decided it was about time I read that!The genres I have seen listed for this book are Sci-Fi and Literary Fiction, which I do agree with, though upon finishing reading the book I would also add Dystopian, Post-apocalyptic and maybe even a little futuristic.At the beginning of the book we seem to be set in some sort of “future time” the prologue introduces us to Mother Ina who is wearing a false wooden nine months gestation pregnant belly even though she is clearly too old to really be pregnant. This detail sort of confused me a little and to a point I still don’t really know why Mother Ina was wearing a wooden pregnancy belly. Mother Ina is instructing the boys who are the latest chosen scribes to copy The Book Of The Unnamed Midwife. Mother Ina explains that it is not just one book but a collection of nineteen journals. She explains that the boys have already been taught the book of Canon which holds the story of dying and that it is a hard thing to read, it may make them feel sick, or upset. They have also learnt the book of Honus, which contains information about the hives. Mother Ina continues instructing them, that they will finish up with The Book of the Dreamless Ones then their training will be complete. Mother Ina drills into them that these books are very special and important. They are also very fragile and sensitive to light. It is the utmost importance that the information in them is kept and is to be handed down over the generations to come.Then the actual book itself begins, the world in a state of widespread illness and panic. The main character of the book is the “Unnamed Midwife” whose real name we never really learn This strong female chooses a different name for every different person or group of people she meets. At the beginning of the book she is referred to “she” but the first time she uses a name it is “Karen” so I will refer to her as Karen now as it is easier to explain the book having a name for the character. It is her diary entries that form an important part of this book. Karen is a nurse and can’t remember the last time she had been at home, or even rested. Karen had been so busy with the constant influx of patients. Karen notices that the fever and illness seems, to be affecting women more. More and more of them are dying. Women that are pregnant are giving having stillbirths and then also dying themselves. Karen has hardly seen her partner Jack either. Jack is working non stop in the hospital labs to try and identify the infection and come up with a vaccine to prevent others succumbing to it or even to find a cure of some sort. The last time she saw Jack he had revealed to her that he still had a long way to go though he did think that this infection was autoimmune illness.It’s not long until she herself falls ill and literally just finds a place to lie down and die. When she does reawaken, she doesn’t know how much time has passed or why she now seems to be fever free. She searches the hospital looking for Jack and in doing so finds lots of dead bodies, again she notices the greater percentage consists of women. She ventures outside of the hospital and is shocked by what she discovers. There are no buses, no cars moving, streetlights and no people. She makes her way to her apartment hoping Jack could be there as she hadn’t found his body in the hospital when she had searched. She is so tired she literally falls onto her bed and sleeps. Suddenly she is aware of the mattress moving as another body lies next to her. In her sleepy state at first, she thinks it is Jack and then realises it is some other man who is intent on raping her. She fights for her life and survives.The first people she meets is a gay couple who give their names as Joe and Chicken, she gives her name as Karen. Karen is invited to eat a meal with them and spend the night. Later when Chicken goes out in search of water, he comes across other people and has to flee and ends up injuring himself quite badly. Karen treats Chicken’s leg and probably saves his life. They stick together for a while, going into office buildings to look for water, they survive a gas explosion and are almost caught by a gang of men. It’s then that Chicken bluntly tells Karen she is no longer welcome to travel with them as she will be putting them in more danger.“Karen” soon decides she needs to hide the fact that she is a woman, as she meets different groups or lone survivors, she is all the more wary of trusting anyone with the fact she is a woman. So, she always gives a male name and says she was a field medic in Afghanistan and just leaves the fact that she is female out of her story. It is not until much later in the book that she reveals she is a qualified midwife. Her skills are certainly needed as some settlers are actively becoming pregnant thinking, they will be okay now the plague/fever seems to have died out. It is also towards the latter part of the book that, the then named Dusty comes across a settlement of what she calls Mormons though they prefer to be referred to as LDS. They believe they are doing Gods work in Huntsville, and they are going to repopulate the world. There are 59 settlers in total, 52 men of varying ages, 3 women consisting of an old woman (too old to have more children), a middle-aged woman and a young newly married woman. There are also 4 children comprising of 2 girls and 2 boys all under the age of 10. Dusty agrees to spending some time with the group as they try to convince her to stay with them. Dusty feels there is something odd and not right about the group and decides she would rather be on her own, though she does agree they can call on her for medical emergencies if needed.The main character is female, what is turning out to be in scarce supply, making it hazardous to be a woman, especially a woman of child bearing age. She is hurt when Joe and Chicken turn their backs on her and I think she would have probably happily stayed with them. The fact they more or less abandon her gives her a harsh reality check, she has no one to rely on but herself. She cuts off her long hair, kits herself out in a vest to bind her chest and wears men’s clothing to disguise that she is female. She learns not to trust anyone. As she meets different people, she gives them all a different name. I wonder if it is meant to be that she no longer remembers her name as she was so ill. Or is it as she no longer identifies with the person she once was, and the world she now lives in that she gives different names. Or perhaps she simply doesn’t trust anyone to tell them the one thing she can keep to herself and that’s her real name. I really liked the “unnamed midwife” as a character, she is a tough woman determined not only to make it on her own but to help any women she comes across on her journey. She provides them with birth control, and any medical help she can give them without revealing herself as a mother.I loved the part of the book where “the unnamed midwife” ends up in a settlement literally called “Nowhere” and hears news of her partner Jack. It certainly makes both her and the reader go through a lot of “What if’s”. Things could have been so different if they had remained together, but then the realist part of her brain and the readers brain kicks in and thinks that the ending she has at the end of the book may never have happened. Had she been travelling with Jack maybe they both would be dead, or Jack dead and her a slave to the meant that would have killed him to get her.I would say this book is an 18+ read with the content and subject matter of rape, and sexuality. I would say that the section concerning the LDS and how they were choosing to live in Huntsville may be uncomfortable reading for some too. I enjoyed the sections that were in diary form initially by the Unnamed Midwife using the various names she came up with, then the section that “Dusty” copied into her journal from the diary Honus had kept during his time on her mission from the LDS. Then there are the diary entries of the people who have come together to live in “Nowhere” too. There is, also the sections where the narrator is telling the story which kept my interest going when some of the diary entries were a bit too slowly paced or a little too drawn out. This is the first book in a series and though at times the book felt a little slow in pace, I still want to read more of this series. I am definitely glad that I finally got around to reading this book. It reminded me a tiny bit of Sophie Littlefield’s, Aftertime Series, Post-Apocalyptic for adult readers. I would say that it’s a decent start to a potentially great series.

Audio Version - I listen to a very diverse range of genre's and am never closed off to trying something new. I must say I'm a bit lost for words on how to even review this book as I found it confusing. I don't think I got what the title and description promised unless I completely missed the mark. It came across to me as journal entries written by the main character who was the "unnamed midwife" following a pandemic, or plague as it is often referred to, which wiped out most of the world's population but mainly affected women and children Along the way other characters contributed to the journals. This set of journals became very important in the future. However, it is unclear as to when the pandemic occurred and then how far into the future they were classified as extremely important and were being transcribed. I did finish the whole book but was left thinking what have I just listened to. I don't even know what genre I would categorise it in. It is the first book of a trilogy but for the first time in forever, I will not be following this book up. It was just too confusing for me and as hard as I tried I just couldn't get to grips with what it was trying to convey. I could not whole heartedly recommend it but also don't let any reviews discourage you and make your own mind up.

This was not what I expected at all. Somehow, I bought this without knowing anything about it and have been putting it off expecting something like Call the Midwife. Let's get something very straight, right up front. This is nothing like that. Wrong genre, wrong period, wrong style. Instead, this is a fantastically written post-apocalyptic tale that is grim and unsentimental. In a world post virus that wiped out 98% of all men and 99% plus of all women, this is a world where women are possessions to be sold and traded, raped and kept. It's a hauntingly written novel and extremely powerful.The Unnamed Midwife is one of the few female survivors of the plague that killed millions and made childbirth more than dangerous, but fatal in this new world. With no new children being born, and mothers often dying of complications during or immediately after birth, the world has become a bleak place indeed. You follow her story as she makes her way alone through this newly deadly world, surviving as best as she can and helping those where it is possible to help them. There is a huge focus on the sexual dynamics of this new world, and the Unnamed Midwife uses this to her benefit by dressing and acting as a male in order to preserve her safety, her sanity and perhaps her life.The tale is told through a mixture of third person narrative and a first person journal, with both periodically skipping between characters. I found it to be an interesting narrative device although the journal writing was difficult to read due to the font. The story of one woman's survival is harrowing and the world is populated with a selection of fascinating groups and individuals. From individuals on the road, to religious fundamentalist groups, roving gangs of rapists and murderers, the desperate and the undeserving.This is a rich tapestry of humans in a desolate and hopeless world, excellently written and wonderfully executed. I found some of the journals of our lead character somewhat tiresome, but enjoyed how this opened up into a wealth of other individuals and stories.

The story would have been alright but why all the foul language? I read for pleasure not for brutal street language. Ok it was American so I am not going to understand all the references or even the geography of the journey. It would, therefore, have been helpful to dispense with the impenetrable acronyms that only Americans understand, and to say where places are or at least the direction of travel; North, South, in the Northwest, near to the east/west coast would really have helped. This discourages me from reading the sequels.The worst part of this book is the pseudo handwriting script at intervals throught the book. So difficult to read on a Kindle no matter how much the font size is enlarged. A simple use of italics would have sufficed.