Title: Athena's Choice
Author: Adam Boostrom
Genre: YA Dystopia
Format: Audiobook
Narrated By: Alex Ford
Length: 7 hours, 29 minutes
Publisher: Independently Published
Publish Date: January 18, 2019
Setting: North American Union
(Former USA)

Death, Alcoholism, Mass Death,
Murder

Indian, East Asian, Lesbian, Trans* Women,
Bisexual

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to BookSirens and Adam Boostrom for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Boo yeah for catching up on my BookSirens reviews! Well, the ones that I was months late on, but hey I’m current now! So sorry this took forever, and honestly I don’t freaking know what took me so long to read this one because I was immediately sucked in when I started and was actually kind of sad when it ended. So here we go!

• I love characters named Athena for some reason. Well yes I know why, it’s because I’m an Athena stan. Like the goddess Athena. Don’t be a crap character.
• Oh, I’m a Nomi fan.
• Ooh they mentioned Hawaii! My home still exists!
• Can I live in a world without men? No offense. I just think they got the right idea.

The world actually thrived without men in it

I’m not even gonna lie. That was so realistic for me, especially when Boostrom started giving some scientific reasoning behind it. Yes, I know this is FICTION but hey, I could totally see it happening. And I mean… these smart ass women didn’t have to worry about getting mansplained all over the place or deal with the usual misogynistic crap that takes place already, and they were able to pretty much save the world from ourselves. I will say that it was interesting that the suicide rate increased throughout the years though, and I’m curious as to the demographics of the victims. Were they straight women? Was it something else they had in common? Just curious.

Girls and women could show affection and love for one another without it being seen as a bad thing.

Girls showing love for one another as friends or whatever is always sexualized and it’s just disgusting. Let girls kiss each other without people wanting to turn it into a dirty movie, you know? But since there are no men in the world, that doesn’t even exist anymore. Nomi and Athena are best friends and while Nomi does love Athena romantically and Athena doesn’t reciprocate it romantically, they still show affection for one another and will give each other kisses and touches and it’s just normal. Anyway.

Actually I’m just keeping this one short because clearly I can’t function right now, so sorry about that. But I thought this book was so interesting. It was cool to see just how much innovation and progress women made on their own with the world. Like, this was a global thing, not just no men in North America. This was no men across the world, and women were able to thrive. They made fertility clinics and girls were born using a combination of two mother genes basically, and their birth was painless. Like they somehow were able to make the birthing process painless. They invented so much cool stuff, and I’m seriously hoping that the scientists and inventors today can do the same – maybe no create a virus that ends up destroying all men, but I’m still in the air about that one – but just the other inventions that improved the world. There was no hunger, no violence, no war. It even seemed like the environment was doing much better as well. Rather than a dystopia, this world almost felt like a utopia to me. It was strange. You should read it. I liked it.

• The Reading Chemist
• LF Books
• MacsBooks
• DG Reads
• Mara’s Folded Pages