Rating: 
Summary: Emotionally shattering, psychologically mesmerizing
Review: This book affected me in a way no book has in a very long time. Ms. Harpman raises more questions than she answers, but that is the true achievement of this work -- that long after I had finished, it continued to mystify and provoke. The prose is confident, beautiful, compelling and captivating. The protagonist's situation is maddening, absurd, frustrating, and heartbreaking, and you will try right along with her to unravel its impenetrable mysteries. But in the end, the absurd situation is not what's important, but rather one woman's quest for identity and humanity in a world where identity is suppressed and humanity is a riddle. You will experience every moment of the narrative as if you were right there with this woman, unseen and unheard, leaving her in stark aloneness even as you hover beside her. If you are looking for an easy read with a happy ending, this is not for you, but if you are looking for an incredibly rendered narrative that raises questions of identity, freedom, knowledge, love, empathy, and dignity, give this book a chance -- you won't regret it. It's hard to believe one can =enjoy= a book so bleak and without hope, but once it grabs hold of you it doesn't let go until the very last word. A haunting tale, a gripping science fiction novel and an impressive achievement. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Moving
Review: This book will stay with you long after you've finished. Desolate, heartbreaking, and very moving. One of the saddest yet most beautiful books I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Moving and poetic
Review: This book, which I wish I could have read in French, was beautiful, and captivating. Although the theme of the book is clearly one of great loneliness in the protagonist, and when you think about it: depressing, the author manages to convey the subtle triumph of a human soul who has lived with captivity, isolation, unfulfillment of almost every kind. I still find myself wondering how such a theme and story could be written with such awesome beauty, and create no repulsion in the reader (me), AND be riveting; but that is exactly what has been accomplished!
Rating: 
Summary: This is one of the best first person narratives
Review: This is one of the best first person narratives I have ever read. It fits into the whole French existential tradition of literature. Absurdity is the only universal explanation of this novel's reality. The horrors of the cages, the inhuman relationships of the women, the unexplainable consistency, and the captors, to the last page, remain as unknown as the planet on which they lived.I liked that as a reader all distraction of details (landscape, characteristics) were removed by Harpman so that my mind was left only with questions. I loved the book's eeriness. That Girl, the protagonist, never knew human contact or the conditioning it created, was very compelling to me. Harpman's ability to name the emotions that would have been cultivated in captivity as well as express those that would have been out of range was phenomenal. I knew the book could end only one way but kept reading in disbelief, that it would risk leaving so many questions still on the table.
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