An Inverse Handmaid’s Tale: Eleven Percent by Maren Uthaug Review

Eleven Percent has been marketed as an “inverse Handmaid’s Tale”—a world where women are in control and only 11% of men remain (kept under lock and key for reproduction and such). But while that pitch might catch your attention, what Maren Uthaug actually delivers is a much more unsettling and layered exploration of power, gender, and memory.

Told through the perspectives of four protagonists—Medea, Wicca, Eva, and Silence—the novel immerses us in a matriarchal society that’s far from utopian. Women may hold institutional power, but the society they’ve built is still riddled with control, violence, and marginalization. It’s not about empowerment, it’s about what happens when any group holds unchecked power without accountability.

What struck me most was how deeply Eleven Percent interrogates not just who has power, but who gets to belong. Uthaug doesn’t shy away from showing and critiquing how even in this flipped world, transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people remain on the edges. The novel also makes space for class critique, religious oppression, and the haunting persistence of social hierarchies—even when they wear new faces.

This is not a comfortable read. It’s disturbing, at times grotesque, and intentionally difficult. But it’s also smart, urgent, and deeply thought-provoking. The world-building is sharp and subtle. We learn about society piece by piece through each new perspective, which gives the story an unsettling sense of realism. It feels like a future that could be, if not exactly likely, then at least plausible in its flaws.

What I really appreciated as a queer reader was the casual, almost ambient queerness of the world. With men largely absent, sapphic relationships are common and unremarkable. The transgender and non-binary characters face immense struggle, but their identities and relationships are portrayed with complexity and care. 

Each of the main characters brings something different to the narrative, even if I didn’t connect emotionally with all of them. Their flaws feel real. Their conflicts, both internal and external, give the book its emotional weight. Whether they’re trying to survive, resist, or conform, they all reflect different facets of what it means to live under a system that demands obedience under the guise of a reformed world.

Eleven Percent isn’t a cautionary tale in the traditional sense. It doesn’t moralize. Instead, it holds up a mirror and asks: if the rules change but the systems stay the same, who really wins? 

It’s a truly weird and dark work of speculative fiction that is worth the read if you’re interested!

Content warnings for transphobia, child abuse, sexual assault, suicidal thoughts.