Well, so much for the suggestion that satire is always conservative (see earlier review of The Twelve Chairs). This is a really powerful, thought-provoking dark book. It's mainly a satire on male power, and has made me feel ashamed at just how much brutality against women that I ignore because it's 'nothing to do with me' - rape, genital mutilation, gang rape in war...all thrown in to relief by making women who are perpetrating the violence against men. In the first few pages I thought 'Oh, I get this...' and wondered how it was going to carry on for a book-length. But it keeps developing, and there are also good characters and plot elements.
There's also more, in the depiction of refugee camps, borderlands, organised crime and trafficking...lots of other cruelties that we just don't think about all that often. And the age of new media, and spin politics. Actually this turned out to be too dark to read at night, because it kept me up.
A really great book. Everyone (but especially men) should read it.
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