Book Title: The End Of Men
Author: Christina Sweeney-Baird
ISBN: 9780008407933
Publisher: Harpercollins Publishers
Publication year: 2021
Price: RM69.90
WHEN you think about the COVID-19 pandemic, you think that the world will be in trouble and everybody is going to die, which sadly happens in this day and age.
It effects everyone, but in “The End Of Men” — authored by Christina Sweeney-Baird, it puts a different perspective on how women can survive without men and what they can do to stop men from dying.
If you are easily upset, skip it. The content is heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching, and in some aspects, terrifying — but it also embraces hope and a positive vision, so think twice before making your choice to open the cover or not.
The book, published in 2021, is set in the years between 2025 and 2032. Like COVID-19, the ‘plague’, a type of flu disease, only infects men and causes them to die in about 48 hours.
The centre of the epidemic was in Glasgow, Scotland, and it was discovered by Dr Amanda Maclean.
After finding out most of the patients she treated were men who died of the virus, she immediately warned the authorities but was ignored.
As cases increased and spread around the world, it was already too late and the number of men dying was through the roof. At this point, women are struggling to find ways to survive without their husbands, sons, and fathers — their loved ones.
The book tells the struggles and hardships of women who tried to protect their male loved ones from being infected — staying at home, not going to work, no grocery shopping, not going to recreational parks, or anything.
They want to keep their husbands, sons, fathers, and relatives safe. The situation forced them to adapt, to be the breadwinners for the family and the protectors of the household at a time ‘the plague’ was on the rise.
After a few years, a female doctor from Toronto, Canada, Dr Lisa Michael, a virologist, has finally created a vaccine against ‘the plague’ and can save the lives of men.
For that, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her effort to create the vaccine and save millions of men around the world.
In my view of this story, it is very similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, but with only men being infected. However, it was a good read and an interesting story.
I think that Christina Sweeney-Baird wants this story to emphasise the hardships and struggles of women if the population of men is decreasing.
Yes, women are capable of multitasking. However, it could affect them physically and emotionally.
This book takes us through the eyes of various characters, mostly women, and what they face on a daily basis as “the plague” infects the world.
As a man reading this book, it was actually heart-wrenching to know what these female characters had gone through.
I could feel the sense of anxiety and panic they were facing, and it was understandable as we are now living in the midst of the pandemic.
All in all, the story was really interesting and answered all my curiosity about what women would do if there were no men left in the world (just a thought) and how they would move forward with their
lives in recovery from the post-pandemic phase.
I would say that Christina Sweeney-Baird has done a really good job of telling a story that focuses on women’s perspective in a pandemic where only men died from a virus.
