Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal

Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal is a humorous graphic novel based on the supposition that male humans have gone extinct and only women are left on the planet. It's 250 pages that you can get through in 45 minutes, so you really feel like you're making progress on something in the world!

The Good:

Dhaliwal pulls off something really challenging to do here. She manages to write a humorous post-apocalyptical world. Nearly every page has a joke on it, but there's also a message about the fact that a lot of problems women have are exacerbated by men, but wouldn't just go away without men around. 

The art is beautiful. It's a strangely realistic version of living in a small town, where your lives intersect with everyone else's. I do regular (Zoom) fitness classes through our local healthcare consortium and the woman who does most of those classes is named Tiffany. The same 12-15 of us regularly attend these classes, so you get to know your fellow students pretty well.  I'm also on the board of directors for our local community center and a woman named Rachel used to be on this board and she recruited me (I still text her questions about once a month - ha! - she's never really going to "leave" the board).  Rachel was at one of our Zoom classes yesterday and I'd never seen her before, so in the minute or two before class started, I took myself off mute and said hi to her. Tiffany was so EXCITED that someone knew Rachel. But it became clear within thirty seconds that EVERYONE who was on the call knew Rachel from one thing or another except Tiffany. Small town life, yo. 

It starts off serious... (page 253)

...and then there's the joke. (page 254)

The Bad:

It's still quite a binary-based book. Trans-women are accepted as women in this world, but non-binary people are not really present. It wasn't a dealbreaker for me, but if I had someone in my life who was sensitive to these types of things, this probably wouldn't be the book for them.

Despite the humor and the art and the absolute charm of this book, I closed the book feeling slightly unsatisfied.  I think there were deeper themes to be realized from this topic, but those themes were shied away from in the service of humor. I guess that's fine and not everything needs to be a meditation on life and the meaning of it all, but it's not the kind of thing you'll be thinking about once you return the book to the library.  

Overall:

It was a fun diversion for a bit on the couch. I thought it was funny and touching at times and I deeply admire Dhaliwal's art and vision.  3/5 stars