I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

 genre: speculative dystopia/science fiction

Our narrator lives in a bunker, underground, with 39 other women.  No one knows how they got there but everyone besides our narrator (called "the child" by the other women) remembers a full life on earth, then some kind of disaster, and then nothing.  Our narrator was a child when she arrived in the bunker, so she has no memory of any kind of pre-bunker life.  She has no memory of physical connection or love from a parent and in the bunker, touching is prohibited.  She is given everything else she technically "needs" but emotionally, she essentially raises herself, trying to learn all she can from the women who are willing to share what they can from a past in a place they have determined they will never see again.  

What an incredible listen.  Speculative is a good word to describe it - it is a book with really no answers, only questions, but they are questions that often dig into the raw bits of what it means to be a human being.  The book is translated from French but the writing still has a stilted quality, at first it's a bit jarring, but by the end it makes so much sense, reading the memories of this woman who has had to figure out so much on her own.  It made me have some really existential thoughts about what IS the point of being human?    How much of what we learn is from the society and culture around us and how much is intrinsic to what we are born with?  I actually really loved this science fictiony look at humanity and womanhood and the profound pleasures of both curiosity and connection.

Also, I listened to the audiobook of this version and there is a really interesting afterward that really expanded my thoughts on the book.