Review: Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah

Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah (August 7, 2018 / Delphinum)

(Disclaimer: I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I received no additional compensation.)

Goodreads Summary:

In modern, beautiful Green City, the capital of South West Asia, gender selection, war and disease have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technology to control its people, and women must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible.

Yet there are women who resist, women who live in an underground collective and refuse to be part of the system. Secretly protected by the highest echelons of power, they emerge only at night, to provide to the rich and elite of Green City a type of commodity that nobody can buy: intimacy without sex. As it turns out, not even the most influential men can shield them from discovery and the dangers of ruthless punishment.

This dystopian novel from one of Pakistan’s most talented writers is a modern-day parable, The Handmaid’s Tale about women’s lives in repressive Muslim countries everywhere. It takes the patriarchal practices of female seclusion and veiling, gender selection, and control over women’s bodies, amplifies and distorts them in a truly terrifying way to imagine a world of post-religious authoritarianism.

My Review: 

In the dystopian world of Green City, (not too far in concept from the Gilead of The Handmaid's Tale) women must take multiple husbands in order to replenish the lost population of women who were wiped out by The Virus. One would think the sheltered women of an underground resistance group would be sneaking around at night to provide sexual comfort, but the powerful men of Green City seek the comfort and care provided by women. They want someone to sit in a room with them or to watch over them as they sleep.  

I like that this feminist dystopian novel was written by a Pakistani woman and that it is set in South West Asia. I currently can't think of a non-Western feminist dystopia and find that this novel adds to the genre in unique ways (such as technology and medicine). I would recommend it to readers who loved The Handmaid's Tale but there are also tones of Vox (technology) and Memoirs of a Geisha (cloistered, communal living and providing attentive service to male clientele).