A surprising and lovely novel about an apocalypse on a world not so different from our own. A read that sticks with you, challenging your world view long after the final page has been turned.

I won't go into details because it's impossible to discuss this book without giving spoilers... but I will say that what I thought was going to be a dark dystopian novel ended up being science fiction instead! That said, I like it very much -- great plot, interesting characters, and a nice combination of action and emotion.

I loved this book! The plot was entertaining and the world-building was astonishing. How would a government go about creating a new world for its inhabitants? This felt real and alive in a way I didn't expect. The characters wrestled throughout with the question of how to see yourself as good, in a world that is falling apart. Highly recommended.

👋🏽PUT THIS DEBUT ON YOUR TBR!👋🏽

How would you spend the weeks leading up to the end of the world? Marissa brilliantly tackles this question in 🌎The World Gives Way🌎

Thanks to #Netgalley and #Redhookbooks for the eARC of #TheWorldGivesWay (opinions are my own)!

Myrra, a contract laborer, finds out information about the spaceship she and the rest of humanity is on. She ends up on the run with baby Charlotte, trying to evade Agent Tobias and the information she learned.

This was part police procedural, part apocalyptic, part science fiction, part literary fiction, part love story and part examination of humanity’s drive to survive and finding out what really matters.

I don’t typically give star ratings on Instagram but for this one, all the stars 🤩 I loved both POV characters, it was so well paced and finding out about the world within the ship was so cool. I’ll be on the lookout for whatever Marissa Levien puts out next

Are the majority of the books you read winners, okay/average or not for you? I feel like I’ve been hitting the book jackpot recently!

This book has such a unique premise, and certainly delivered! The world is going to end, only it isn't the world we think of. It's essentially a very large spaceship that has basically become its own society, complete with various cities and landscapes and cultures. But it's on its way out, which Myrra, an indentured worker, finds out the night her employers kill themselves, leaving Myrra behind with their baby and an existential crisis.

Myrra had been facing fifty years of servitude, but is suddenly free- only if she can outrun the law, which will certainly be on her tail. Even more so as she is accompanied by the infant of a very wealthy and influential family. Tobias, meanwhile, is trying to make his mark in law enforcement, since many of his colleagues assume nepotism got him the job. When he's put on the case, his cleverness will stop at nothing to catch Myrra.

As Myrra runs, we get to see much of the world that has been built on this ship. And, we see how reluctant people are, no matter the evidence glaring at them, to accept catastrophic outcomes. It's so very relevant and thought provoking that no matter what Myrra told people, and no matter the events that corroborated her story, people believed what they wanted to believe.

This book is part survival story, as Myrra tries to find a safe place for herself and Charlotte. It's certainly part sci-fi, as the spaceship they live on is potentially to be stranded and unfixable in outer space. It's certainly part apocalyptic, as Myrra has inside information about the end of days. And it's incredibly emotional and character driven, with so much heart. And it begs the question, what would you do if your world was imminently ending? How would any human being react?

Bottom Line: Beautifully written and exquisitely emotional, The World Gives Way is a unique, genre-bending novel that I won't soon forget.

“What would you do if the world was ending tomorrow?”

When her employers wind up dead, contract worker Myrra is freed sooner than expected, but at a terrible price.

The World Gives Way was so unexpectedly heartbreaking and beautiful, and is easily one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. I love Myrra and her perseverance through her world literally falling apart around her.

I was drawn to this book for the description of Myrra, but once I started reading the book, I loved the world building aspects as well. The concept of the world in which the book takes place reminds me a bit of the Doctor Who episode, The Beast Below. I don’t want to give anything more away than that!

It’s less of a science fiction novel in a way, and more an examination of humanity and connection. I can definitely see why it’s being compared to Station Eleven. Somehow in the bleakest of situations, there was still beauty and wonder.

It’s impressive to me that this is a debut novel. Marissa Levien tells a wonderful story that is carefully crafted. I look forward to reading more of her books in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

At times it seems like The World Gives Way is trying to see how many good design ideas it can stuff into itself without exploding. Scifi epic? Check. Addictive crime solving? Yup. Multiple characters with compelling emotions? Uh-huh! Visual-novel goodness? That too! Even more incredibly, this hodgepodge of awesome components crammed together into one book create something utterly unique and enduringly memorable.
Full review to come on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/hollyheartsbooks

The cover draws you in -- the writing keeps you glued to the page. This book is really worth taking a look at.

The World Gives Way: A Novel by Marissa Levien
Publisher: Redhook Books
Genre: General Fiction (Adult) | Sci Fi & Fantasy | Women's Fiction
Publication Date: June 15, 2021

There are some books that stay with you long after you finish them and I know that The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien is one of them!

This book was so much more than I expected! Set in a future world, I was expecting a bleak dystopia, instead I found a story with rich characters and a lively world filled with secrets.

I loved the depth and dimension of this book and I didn’t want it to end. I absolutely loved the characters! They felt so real!

I’m trying to be careful about what I say because I do not want to give away spoilers, but I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves books set in the future, sci-fi, police dramas, fiction….honestly, this has something for everyone. And most of all, there is a wonderful story that I found to be captivating!

The World Gives Way will be published on June 15th so make sure you get your ore-order in! You don’t want to wait to read this one!!!

I'm so grateful to Marissa Levien, Redhook Books, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

This was very... Hmm. Well, it's not a hopeful book by any means. And I don't think that's what I was expecting (from the brightly colored cover to teasing mentions of freedom in the synopsis) but it also felt undeniably realistic in that way too. I like that we don't see some last-ditch surprise that goes against reality and the tone as we know it up to this point. And indeed, there's something beautiful about the way Myrra embraces what she has, her life as it has been, and where she came from.

The other thing that's very much worth noting is a plethora of very strange yet arresting images that we get amidst dreams of disaster. Levien so brilliantly follows the spiral of someone's imagination, whether it's entirely logical or not. One of my favorites is from very early on when a character is trying to come to grips with the idea of being sucked out into space and thinking that the water in her eyeballs might freeze and shatter, sending glittering shards into the black. Obviously that's not how that would go, but the idea is that this character's panic is sinking deep claws into her imagination and spinning images of terrifying and illogical things in the wake of uncertainty.

And that looming uncertainty shows us so much about our characters and the other people they see. How people want to be anywhere but where they are, how panic feasts on infrastructure and morality, how the rich vs poor react.

It's not a light or easy read, and there were a few connections I think I missed along the way, plus the idea of intimacy automatically leading to romantic/sexual relationship/attraction... But I devoured it anyway. And I enjoyed the ride.

Myrra Dal has fifty years left on her contract, a contract signed decades ago by family. She’s a contract worker, assigned to the highest bidder before landing her position with the Carlyles – government worker Marcus, his retired actress wife Imogene and young Charlotte. But when the Carlyles die, Myrra is left with Charlotte and a new reality, on the run from the law with terrible secret.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a dystopian novel and Marissa Levien’s debut novel was a great opportunity to dive back in. Set aboard a spaceship, the only world that narrators know, this was futuristic, dark and thought provoking. This wouldn’t have been a book I would have picked up in a bookstore, but I’m happy for the opportunity to have read it.

This book has a lot of great qualities. The plot is original, I’ve not read anything quite like it. The writing has a poetic quality to it and the pacing was good. I was sucked right into the plot and it was a quick read.

Most of the flaws for me were my own personal things. I wanted more history on the ship. It was fine without it. I am just curious by nature. You get drips and drabs about the construction of the ship, how it operates, etc. but I wanted to know how it was launched, why it was launched, why they structured the communities of people how they did. The book felt like dropping into the middle of a story and giving you not much of the beginning before hurdling towards the end. More worldbuilding would have helped for me, but that’s my preference.

Myrra was a wonderfully written character but I almost wanted her to be more flawed. She seems too naïve to the world for someone crushed by it. Tobias wasn’t my favorite. His obsession with Myrra after reading her letters and following her to the end of the world was off putting to me, bordering on stalker.

I also may be reading too much into it, but it was unsettling for me that all the contract workers described in detail were all described as POC? Myrra, Ami, Rachel, Tom, all described as having dark skin.

If you’re a fan of Dystopian novels without happy endings, this will be a must read. For me, it just fell a little flat.

Thanks to NetGalley and Redhook Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This story was so absorbing and thought provoking and I loved the author's storytelling approach, where readers become observers to what is happening. We see through the eyes of different characters and I liked the message for today's world.

Great commentary on the future humans on Earth have if current political, economical, and environmental issues aren't resolved. Interesting idea with unique writing and stellar execution. This most original and provocative read is both entertaining and memorable. I see a bright future for author Marissa Levien.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book, and I enjoyed the phenomenal writing. However, I felt the plot was a bit too slow in the middle, and the ending left me wanting more.

It is a solid story overall, and I recommend it for fans of dystopian or science fiction YA!

This book kind of reminds me of a sci-fi Titanic with notes of "Westworld" laced in. A spaceship, on a multi-generational journey to a new world, lumbers through space until it suffers catastrophic damage. This fact is largely kept from the citizens of the spaceship as teams frantically try to figure out how to fix the ship.

This serves as the backdrop for the main character Myrra, Myrra works as indentured labor for one of the wealthiest couples on the ship and in one of the most populated cities. Before their deaths, they reveal the truth of the ship's damage which sends Myrra and their infant daughter on a journey. This isn't a journey to safety or salvation since there's nowhere to escape to within this closed system, but rather it's a journey of self-discovery and sheer hope. Through this, she's pursued by the ship's policing agency whose constant presence keeps her moving.

This book has a spectacular opening and an emotional resolution. Still, the middle was a slog for me. I find that I'm not connecting with journey narratives that move characters from place to place. In this one, that movement introduces us to new places and new characters who quickly leave the story and have no real impact on the narrative. That's kind of the nature of this structure, but it also means less time devoted to truly understanding the main cast of characters.

The World Gives Way is a beautifully written story about Myrra, who is a contract worker where her life belongs to the highest bidder. Something happens to her current "employers", leaving her with their baby and a horrifying secret about the world she lives in.

The writing in this book was phenomenal. Every character had so much depth and seeing their motivations was heartbreaking. Myrra living her whole life with one hardship after the next but still having hope for Charlotte was beautiful. Tobias really helped juxtaposition someone who had also had a rough life but nowhere near the extent of those essentially in slavery. I loved that the book did not center around some romantic relationship between the two the whole time. It was hard to not empathize with every character in the book. I saw the ending coming because I couldn't see an alternative but it still somehow was fulfilling. For me, this book is a 4.5/5.

If you like end of the world but we have to keep the hope alive, beautiful writing, and complex characters this book is for you.

I received a copy of this book for free from NetGalley and Redhook Books in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. I need to either lower every other 5 star rating I've ever given or GoodReads needs to add a sixth star. I am BLOWN AWAY by this simultaneously dark and hopeful read. I am going to be purposefully vague here - as I believe it's the authors intention to start you off with very little + I adored cycling through the wide range of emotions as I read.

In the near future, Myrra is a indentured worker finishing out the contract that her grandmother signed. In just fifty years her family line will be free. But one night she finds her employers dead and suddenly she has a chance at freedom much sooner. Bringing along her employers' infant daughter and harboring the secret they died to escape, Myrra runs.

That is just the start - as Myrra learns more about her world, she discovers how short lived freedom will be.
While the science fiction takes a back seat to the character development most of the book, I found the world building very well fleshed out. The different cities and structures within the world are so creative and Levien manages to create an atmosphere that is both expansive and claustrophobic.

Myrra and Charlotte are both so easy to love; I felt such a kinship with the realistic characters in this novel. The World Gives Way is a breathtaking look at the extent we will go for true human connection even in the darkest of times.

Special thanks to Redhook Books and Netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 stars??? Ummm, not sure where to start. I did not like the writing style of this book at all. I read the first 100 pages and had to put it down because I was more confused then interested to see what happened next. Hopefully I may pick it back up and finish it.

It's difficult to write a story when readers are told its ending - or at least have a pretty good idea about what it will entail - in its opening chapters. And that goes double when that ending is a dark, difficult, or heartbreaking one. After all, if we know going in that characters we come to care about will suffer, hurt, or even die at the end, how compelling can that story possibly be? So it takes an even more special skill to craft a tale that leaves readers hoping against hope that everything they've been told on every page is wrong and that the ending they've been promised won't actually come to pass.

Marissa Levien's debut novel is The World Gives Way is not just an example of deft, careful storytelling, its beautiful, bleak narrative should serve as a roadmap for other authors attempting to pull off the same feat. This is the kind of ambitious story that the science fiction genre was made to tell, one that explores issues of life, death, humanity, hope, forgiveness, and more. It's uncomfortably dark in places and painfully beautiful in others, and while there are certainly moments where it stumbles - Myrra, as a character is more interesting and more three-dimensional than Tobias's, I certainly would have loved to see additional POVs as more people realized the fate of their doomed world) - the fact that it trusts its readers enough not to pull its punches is a rather remarkable feat.

The World Gives Way by Marissa Levian.

What would you do if the world was ending?

The Handmaid's tale meets the TV show The 100.Told by perspective of two characters I was intrigued how it was going to end when you know that their world's literally due to end.

I wasn't sure at first but then as got further in the action began to grab me. Bit like a puzzle you put together as you read with context and background chapters interspersed within story.

Levian creates an interesting world, inspired by the real world but with creative differences. Not necessarily about where you are when the world ends, but who your with and what you make it.

I found it had a slightly anticlimactic ending yet somewhat satisfying at the same time.
However I was still left with some questions about how the world got to be like it was.

I would give it 3/5 stars.

This was awesome!!! A great page turner, it kept me engaged. I loved the writing style and the story.