Gish Jen has crafted an eerily plausible dystopia in this novel. It's a scary world, but the novel is very readable.

Gish Jen's imaginative story is well drawn and thought provoking. Very good for our crazy times. Should appeal to fans of alternate worlds.

Excellent storytelling and mind blowing world development. Highly recommend to fans of near future dystopia, speculative fiction, baseball, and family dramas. Great narration.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Net Galley.

So probably this book just wasn’t for me. If you like SciFi and dystopia, you might like it. It’s set in the future country of AutoAmerica where everything was changed by automation. Climate change didn’t help either. Gwen is a Surplus (it’s as bad as it sounds) as opposed to being a Netted. She is the daughter of a former professor and a lawyer who is still agitating against the new regime.

If you like baseball, than maybe you would like this book, too. Gwen has a “golden arm” and even though she is surplus, she is recruited by NetU to play on their team.

The narrator is Gwen’s father, the former professor. It’s somewhat confusing since he seems to have the least to do with this story.

Not a book I can recommend.

Really loved this book. It's absolutely a page turner. Super compelling and interesting and the larger story is so important and told in such a unique way.

A dystopian Sci Fi novel about baseball??? You do not have to be a baseball aficianado to enjoy it. "The Resisters" is about consumerism, AI, segregation, family, friendship, betrayal, loyalty and self-worth. Are we really so different from Jen's AutoAmerica society? Read it and see what you think.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was a little slow for me, but I love Gish Jen and her work.

Disturbingly plausible, darkly funny, and yet a sweet family story at the same time. It took me a long time to finish because so much of it rang true--from classism, racism, and technology taking over the world, plus the climate changed landscape, Jen has created a world that seems closer than I care to imagine.

The interesting thing about speculative fiction is how it makes us look at our own lives. In AutoAmerica, humans do nothing. Artificial Intelligence handles everything, no thinking required. But in the elite group, the “Netted” there are resisters. And the family in the story resist what is being taken from them. Gwen, the daughter of Grant and Eleanor, is a baseball whiz. She’s so good that she’s pressured to undergo genetic engineering. It bothered me as I read the book how easily people were willing to let go of their rights. It’s a very thoughtful book for these political times, and the message is clear, THINK FOR YOURSELF.

Clever, sharp, and yet terribly frightening! It doesn't take much imagination to think that the author is giving us a peek into a very unpleasant but not unlikely future. And baseball - that most American of all games - transported to AutoAmerica. What a story - thank you, Gish Jen!

This book was more than I expected - I thought I was getting a dystopian book about baseball. I wasn't expecting warning lights for the future; a book about social justice; an in-depth relationship, feminist future, and also baseball! It was an interesting read that won't be everyone's cup of tea. I am wondering about longevity in its appeal, but it was a good read.

In Gish Jen’s explosive new speculative fiction novel, “The Resisters,” underclass parents risk everything in a stifling technocracy just so that their kids can play baseball.

Grant and Eleanor Cannon-Chastenet, married ex-professor and human rights lawyer, are “Surplus”—their jobs have supposedly been rendered unnecessary in AutoAmerica by an all-powerful Internet, which they call “Aunt Nettie.” They are also persons of color, or “coppertoned”—Blasians in a society where being white, or “angelfair,” is everything, and can blonde hair and blue eyes can be bioengineered if you’re rich enough in LifePoints—a sort of all-encompassing credit score based on your algorithmic data.

Heroic Eleanor has been arrested and tortured for fighting in the sluggish and rigged courts for basic freedoms, all of which have been stripped from the Surplus in an effort to keep them under control and in their own geographic areas (which are flooded or on the water due to climate change). Grant, the narrator of the novel, tinkers in the basement to try to block spy signals, disrupt his smarthouse’s ever-listening ears, and hide from swarms of drones. His skills get the ultimate test when his daughter, Gwen, turns out to be an amazing pitcher and the family forms an Underground Baseball League (freedom of assembly is forbidden to the Surplus).

Readers shouldn’t expect the Resisters in this book to be synonymous with the Resistance. The book is on a different historical timeline altogether. Political and social strata in the AutoAmerican Apartheid have been reshuffled, except that skin color is still a status symbol. There are plenty of well-meaning liberals on the privileged side, which is called the “Netted” because they all have jobs in technology. For them, the Autonet is helpful, not threatening. The Surplus receive a Basic Income and their only job is to consume goods to keep the economy going—what are they complaining about? If they have secret police (“Enforcers”) it’s their own fault for being so hard to control. There is no point on wasting advanced education on the Surplus either. But AutoAmerica wants to get the Olympics going again, and so they need athletes from that inferior gene pool—and will use invasive surveillance technology to detect who they are, and where they are. No one knows just how much Aunt Nettie knows about them, or how she finds out. Sound familiar?

Jen’s vivid imagination and writing finesse makes this novel endlessly entertaining, with an “aha” of disturbing recognition on every page. The loving, rebellious Cannon-Chastenet family will melt your heart. Parents will recognize the dilemma of wanting to protect your child versus the value of leaving her free to choose, even if she chooses against your most cherished values—because freedom to choose your own destiny is itself one of your most cherished values.

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher and was encouraged to submit an honest review.

2.5 stars
As someone who watches baseball and enjoys dystopian novels, I had high hopes for this book.

Set in the near future in a world affected by climate change and controlled by AI, the AutoNet, Gwen is a Blasian girl born with a throwing arm that has so much strength and accuracy the she was destined to be a pitcher. However, in AutoAmerica no one plays baseball anymore. Gwen's family is Surplus in a world divided into Surplus (forcibly unemployed, living on water or swamp, not white, nor blonde) and Netted (employed, living on land, angel fair, and faithful followers of the AutoNet). Her mother is an attorney known for fighting injustice. Her father is a former college professor. To give Gwen the opportunity to play baseball, they form an underground league for the Surplus. When AutoAmerica reinstates baseball in hopes of beating ChinRussia in the Olympics, Gwen has the opportunity to attend Net University, play baseball for the university team, and possibly crossover to become Netted.

In contemplating by lack of enthusiasm for the novel. I came to a few conclusions. More than once, I became confused and had to reread. In particular, Gwen's friend Ondi left me shaking my head and looking back. Gwen's father is the narrator. Yet for a large part of the book she is away. Letters and a listening device contribute to his narrative. This book was slow going for me and somewhat disappointing.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Concept had potential, but I found the text to be lackluster and contribute to unnecessary confusion. It's a shame, because the parallels between our current society and the book were spot on -- this could have been an excellent apocalyptic future novel....but it just falls flat.