The XY
(Also called Who Runs The World)
Written by Virginia Bergin
Originally published in 2017
About 320 pages
Rate: 2/5
My summary of The XY
It's been over 60 years since a virus took out almost all XYs (males). River is wondering about outside of her village when she sees an XY on the verge of dying. Instead of letting him rot, she decides to take him back to her village where he mother and grandma secretly hide the boy and nurse him back to health.
No one understands how he could have survived the virus. However, he can't go back to the camp, otherwise he would risk infecting the other boys and he can't stay with them because it's not allowed. In this world, women have been taught to fear the men and boys have been taught to fear women. It's hard to say whether either of them is justified after River begins to uncover the secrets that surround her.
My thoughts on The XY
The author really knows how to use her keyboard... (and I'm not just talking about the length of the book, she used bold, italics, underline, everything you could think of.) This book could have said what needed to be said within a matter of 150 pages, but it's 320 pages. It was a super easy read, but the book could have been condensed.
I thought the idea of the book was super interesting, a world where there are few men and one where men are seen as useless aside from donating their sperm. It sounded interesting, but the plot is so dull. There were really only four super interesting things going on within the storyline, the rest was fluff.
I think there was some queer representation within the book? But maybe it could be written off as friendship, River and Plat seem to be in a relationship and I thought their dynamic was sweet, I wish that there was more written about their relationship. There was almost mentions of people having XXY chromosomes and people transitioning, but it was super brief, I think that would have been fun to expand on.
Because women were taught to fear men in this society, it doesn't stray to far from why women are scared of men today. As they say, "not all men, but enough men". There was a super random r*pe attempt in the middle of the book and it seemed to be the rising action, which was disappointing, because why? There was so much to work with and the author chooses that?!
It's also said that men were taught to fear women, and for the same reasons as women are scared of men. Which I get that women can do the same scary things as men, but why cause fear when women are clearly just trying to help the men and everyone else survive. The boy who River helps seems to be just like a regular teen boy in 2022. Nothing seems to have changed for the boys and men aside from being trapped in a bubble so they don't die.
The ending was pretty cool, I liked how River found her voice and people were set free, but wow that story took forever to conclude.
Quotes
"In her arms, the boy who doesn't cry cries."