It is the New Time, a time not so different from ours except that the men are gone. All but eleven percent, that is, the minimum required to avoid inbreeding. But they are safely under lock and key in “spa” centers for women’s pleasure (trained by amazons to fulfill all desires) and procreation. A few women protest that the males should be treated better – more space, better food, but all agree that testosterone cannot be allowed to go free. The old patriarchal cities are crumbling, becoming overgrown (women don’t blow things up); people now live in round houses in round communities. But if you prefer the slum, that’s okay too. Religion has survived, sort of: women priestesses speak in tongues, inspired by snake venom, as apples are passed around to the congregation.
Four different lives intersect: Medea, a tiny, long-haired witch and snake whisperer; Wicca, a young priestess who excelled at the “self-pleasuring” curriculum in school and has lost her pregnant lover; Eva, a doctor working in a spa center, and Silence, who lives in an almost abandoned convent. Each has a secret and one is not what she seems.
This is the first novel to appear in English by celebrated Danish author Maren Uthaug. Provocative, irreverent, slightly squeamish-making and completely riveting, Eleven Percent makes you think.
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First line:
In one account of creation, Lilith was Adam's first wife.
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Source:
Source:
Netgalley eARC in exchange for an honest review
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Rating:
DNF @ 8%
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To start, I loved the little blip of the creation story and wish it would have been expanded because it was really short and quick. After that, everything goes downhill for me. We start the story with menstrual blood baked into cakes and feeding stillborn puppies to snakes in the first couple of pages. Writing wise, there were abrupt ends to scenes and I just felt eternally confused about everything. I know I didn't give it much time to even out but I was confused enough that I couldn't get into the story at all or understand what was happening.
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