Quick Take - Nomansland by Lesley Hauge

Following in the footsteps of Suzanne Collins and Kristin Cashore, Lesley Hauge tries to create a world in which the way of life is vastly different with a strong heroine.  Except the book is less dystopic and more problematic and the heroine is not Katniss or Katsa.  Keller is not nearly as strong willed as she appears to be at the outset and does little more than let things happen to her rather than take the reigns.  To be totally fair, this book would have been much better from the perspective of the real rebel of the novel and Keller's apparent foil Laing who is outgoing and courageous, so very unlike the by the book main character.

Nomansland is about a group of women and the fallout from not having any men around.  Unfortunately, even though this is post apocalyptic in some ways and dystopic in others, the book still allows petty juvenile jealousy to rule the action and take over the plot (what little there seems to be of plot, at any rate) as Keller supposedly comes of age.  She never really does grow up exactly, but she does witness some life changing events and has to make a hard decision come the end, which is where the book ends forcing one to wonder, what, exactly, was the point of getting there to not have much resolution.

In the end, Nomansland sounds better as a premise than it reads as a novel.  The biggest strength of Hauge's book is easy to digest writing which is readily accessible, if not at all times overly detailed.  The lack of detail plays a part in the stories lack of plotting as it settles more for allowing things to happen to the characters rather than the characters making events happen.

This is an Avoid Me book.