Noah Hawley points out in his novel that America was originally intended to be a Utopia where everyone would have all the freedom and joy they could possibly want. However, the hundreds of years that followed saw great changes that had to be made in order to continue with this great experiment. The discontent that has arisen because of all these changes, that not everyone has agreed with, is what we are encountering today. And that is what Mr. Hawley's novel, "Anthem", deals with.

With dark humor and satire, we meet a cast of characters that many of us may recognize from the news. These characters are wealthy and powerful and know which buttons to push to enrage those who are already angry and discontented and itching to stop all the change. Mr. Hawley also lintroduces a cast of teenagers and young adults who were put on earth to possibly save mankind from themselves.

The cautionary tale the author weaves is brilliant. The novel is so exceptional I could not put it down. I was so enthralled by the vision Mr. Hawley painted of a society just falling apart. Listening to the news daily is depressing indeed. But with the author's perspective still fresh in my mind, just possibly we may be able to stop the world from devolving further.

I loved parts of this book and other parts I just skipped over. This was my first Noah Hawley books so not sure if this is just how he writes, but I loved the first half of the book: great story. Then there was the break in the middle that I didn't need.

What if the children of today, when faced with inheriting the world that generations before them have damaged nearly beyond repair, decided to rise up and not take it peacefully?

What if they fought the violent world with violence? If my own children joined the fight, would I rage with them?

This book isn't for everyone. At least 50% of the population won't agree with what's presented, and yet Hawley didn't back down and still wrote what needed to be written. This isn't an escapist read, quiet the opposite. It's asking you to tune in, really see what's happening.

This would make an excellent book club book if you could find a group of people brave enough to read it.

This was a strong 4.25... edging 4.5!

I know there is a bit of controversy around this title... let me breaknit down for you...

"I like Action-Thrillers":

The pitch: The world is in an uproar as children are discovered to be committing suicide in record rates, with only a cryptic one-word message left behind. Meanwhile, a brother races to save his abducted sister. A wild ride that takes The Stand and makes it real!

"I like cerebral books that make you think":

The pitch: Imagine a world where the Covid pandemic is but the calm before the storm. Hawley takes an in-depth look at how our fragmented social strata is being hyper-sensationalized and paints a startlingly realistic look at what the future may hold for us in. Regardless of political motivation, or right or wrong, this cause-and-effect look at world events is sure to make you look at the world differently.

"I like well-written, literary books":

Noah Hawleys prose is beautiful, as he first brings us back to a time of pride, safety and plenty, then sweeps us forward with clarity and insight thru the eyes of children. The relationships he creates, histories that he unearths and future that he paints will have you laughing and crying. Filled with personal stories of a family struggling to find their child, a father looking to redeem himself, young love and the redeeming power of faith, you will love these characters and their struggles.

While I didn't rate it as high as it may seem I enjoyed it (no spoilers), I think this was and exceptional book ro either enjoy, or get you thinking about where the world is headed. Bravo, Noah!

From start to finish this is a disturbing, dark, gut-wrenching read. It combines all the horrors of the past years that we have lived through, mixes them all together and presents them into reality that is shocking and eye-opening if we will just see. You will end up asking yourself; “can this really happen?” What will your answer be?

Highly recommended.

Noah Hawley’s book Before The Fall was a favorite of mine back in 2016, so I was pleased to receive a copy of his new book, Anthem, from Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. And wow, lots of hype around this one: “The first big novel of 2022” and an “epic thriller…as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale.” So I was READY for a great read!

The first sentence is a grabber: “The summer our children began to kill themselves was the hottest in history.” Before too many pages, we are immersed in a world spiraling into…what? It is a few years after the pandemic (which is still raging at the time of this writing), there is strife and deep division everywhere, and the teenagers are killing themselves by the dozens, then hundreds, then…you get the idea.

As if the climate change that runs throughout the book weren’t enough, there is the opioid epidemic: “A factory worker in Pittsburgh goes to the doctor for his trick knee and comes out with a bottle of pills. Six months later, her has sold all his furniture and is buying pills in ones and twos from the back of a used Toyota.” There are memes that only teenagers can understand, and Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister Claire’s suicide. He, along with a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet, set out to find a man known as The Wizard. OK, that’s when I lost it. Or it lost me.

Maybe I’m just not the demographic? I’m not a teen and I’m not a big fan of sci-fi. Although this one falls into the “close enough to reality to be REALLY scary” category, it still wasn’t for me. I guess the “feverish foresight” mentioned in the publisher’s blurb just wasn’t enough. In any case, Hawley can definitely write and I will grab his next book as soon as it is available…but Anthem and I just weren’t a match! Two stars.

Dark, tragic, and action-packed!

Anthem is a creative, pacey, intriguing novel that sweeps you away to a few years in the future when the world has finally seen the back of the current pandemic, mother nature is reaping even more havoc on a planet that continues to warm, politics is as tumultuous as ever, teenagers are taking their own lives at an alarming rate, and a misfit group of teens, including the son of a wealthy pharmaceutical exec and a boy who likes to be addressed primarily as “the Prophet” decide to take matters into their own hands and hunt down a sadistic billionaire who thinks he’s way above the law.

The writing is complex and suspenseful. The characters are troubled, driven, and impulsive. And the plot told from multiple perspectives and with a large cast of characters is tight and intense as it twists, turns, and unravels all the actions, motivations, personalities, and relationships within it.

Overall, Anthem is not the type of book I typically read but was nevertheless a menacing, pensive, unique page-turner with a fantastical thread that did a remarkable job of raising the question will the youth of today be able to weather the storms and handle all the responsibilities, catastrophes, and disasters that are sure to come.

Okay. I wanted to love this. The premise sounded awesome. And I liked parts of it. But many, many more parts just felt like one long lecture. (And I don't disagree politically, but it was just too much).

I really enjoyed Noah Hawley's previous books but "Anthem" fell very flat for me. Too much commentary and random asides and not enough of a coherent plot for me to enjoy it.

A VERY disturbing dystopian read. Hard to read it in the current climate, but Hawley’s writing continues to be strong. Despite this being a very uncomfortable book to read, I’m glad I did!

Thanks to NetGalley and Anthem for the review copy!

Anthem: A Novel by Noah Hawley was without a doubt one of my most anticipated reads of 2022. Despite the fact that I don't like attaching that label to books, because they don't often live up to the hype, I couldn't help myself with this one. Honestly, it was a good choice because this book was amazing.

Anthem: A Novel is an ambitious and disturbing novel about post-covid America. I think the part about it that I liked so much, is that it is so believable. It doesn't seem far-fetched and out of the realm of possibility at all.; not with the way the world has been going for several years now. Maybe I'm jaded, or just very realistic and this is why the story appealed to me so much. It hit home, it disturbed me, it made me think about what I read long after the last page, and that doesn't happen often.

I enjoyed this author's previous book a lot. This one not so much. I really think it was my mood. I will purchase this book for the library and I am sure there are some patrons that will enjoy this book.

I really enjoyed Noah Hawley's previous book - Before the Fall. His new novel is the recently released Anthem.
I was intrigued by the plot description.

From Grand Central Publishing:

"The first big novel of 2022: an epic literary thriller set where America is right now, in which a band of unlikely heroes sets out on a quest to save one innocent life—and might end up saving us all.

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.

Noah Hawley’s new novel is an adventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners. Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers."

Okay, here's the thing - and it's very hard for me to say this. But, Anthem is a very rare DNF for me. I've picked up and put down the book many times. At page 114 I threw in the towel.

I want to stress that Hawley is a truly talented writer. His scathing depictions and dismantling of society, politics, religion, business, pharmaceuticals, history, climate and more are unsettling, yet strangely spot on. Hawley is writing about our world, now and in the near future.

Anthem takes place a few years after the Covid pandemic has passed. The generation of teenagers who will be the new leaders in a few years have chosen to kill themselves - in droves. This was pretty hard to read as so many of us are feeling pandemic fatigue. "Now we had to wonder, had that endless lockdown our children endured, had long-term mental health effects - all that computer schooling, the chronic fear of falling behind academically, socially, the endless months of heightened anxiety and uncertainty?

Page 114 details a text exchange between an unknown male and a young teenage girl. And it's ugliness saddened me. And I thought - I just don't want to read anymore. I admit to sneaking ahead to the last few chapters - and I thought yes, I've confirmed my decision to myself. I wasn't up for the journey to that last chapter. But I did find that last chapter was redemptive.

I do encourage you to check out the five star reviews on Goodreads.

"Proof is irrelevant. Reality has become a personal choice, denial of reality a weapon."

The past couple of years has been difficult. I don't think you could talk to anyone who would disagree. First, there is the global pandemic, a health crisis that has stollen the lives of far too many people. It continues to ravage us in new forms, even as I write this. With COVID has come a host of other problems. People have lost their jobs, lost their loved ones, lost their sanity as they quarantine from the rest of society. And here's the thing, the pandemic isn't the only thing that's made the last few years troubling. Climate change has reached a point of being undeniable. Storms and fires are billed as "100-year weather events" even as they seem to happen every few weeks. We are at the point of not choosing how to stop climate change (most scientists agree that it is far too late for that) but how we will mitigate the impact of it. And then there's politics. For better or worse, the 2016 US Presidential Election and the events that have followed seem to have forever changed the way politics happens in our county. People are more divided than ever. Simply put, things have not been easy.

Noah Hawley, an author well known as executive producer, writer, and showrunner of the hit TV series Fargo as well as for his bestselling 2016 novel Before The Fall, has lived through this reality just like the rest of us. His latest novel Anthem is set in a world that closely mirrors the bleak times that we have all been facing. Be warned, this is a dark work that doesn't shy away from some tough subjects. Suicide, sexual assault, and violence line the pages of this story, reflecting the grim state of the world. There were several times where the real world and Hawley's fiction were too similar for me to stomach, forcing me to pause and take some moments away from the book. Still, he presents a powerful and poignant narrative that forces the reader to reflect on the state of the world we share, thrilling us and moving us along the way. If you can get past the initial shock of it all, the book is well worth exploring further.

"The adults are lost. We, their children, are starting over."

The children of the world are committing mass suicide. The adults are at a loss for what to do about it. Why is this happening? It could be that spending the last few years only interacting with the computer screen in front of them instead of with real people has taken the ultimate toll on them. Perhaps it is the realization that the world that older generations are leaving to them is in worse shape than what they inherited. Whatever the reasons, youth suicide has become an epidemic. For young Simon Oliver, suicide has been all he can think about recently. Not because he has thought of the act himself, but because he was the unlucky soul to discover his older sister's body. Since that day, Simon has been in the Float Anxiety Abatement Center. He's mostly unaware of just how bad things have gotten outside. Simon's internal turmoil is about to collide with the strife of the outside world in a way that he could never have imagined.

In the treatment center, Simon meets Louise, a young woman who has a troubled past of her own. She tells of her time in the clutches of The Wizard, an extremely wealthy, Jeffery Epstein-type man who rapes young girls to fulfill his own twisted desires. Simon and Louise encounter another young man, The Prophet, who claims that God speaks through him, encouraging him to break out of the center, establish a utopia, and rescue the country. No small task for a group of troubled youth, especially given the state of the rest of the world. America is on the brink of collapse. Fires rage across the lands and in the souls of those who inhabit them. Through these everyday kids, we see this epic tale unfold before us.

"The apocalypse, it turns out, is easy. There is no confusion, no uncertainty about the stakes. The world is in chaos. You must survive. End of story."

It is difficult to put into words what Noah Hawley's newest novel is. Anthem is epic in scope, thrilling at times, and difficult to grasp at others. The work holds a lens up to the world we are living in, making it impossible to discern where reality ends and fiction begins. Hawley is constantly shifting perspectives to various characters, showing flashbacks and present moments, all in an attempt to fully capture the world he is portraying. He even breaks down the fourth wall several times, inserting the perspective of 'the author' into the grand narrative he tells. Despite the large scale and complexity of this story, I never felt that the book buckled under the sheer weight of itself. Hawley is a master at a character study. He takes his time to ground each character, even the villains. This helped keep me connected to the story at each moment. I'll be interested to see what other readers ultimately make of Anthem. I'm guessing you'll either really love it, or won't be able to get through it. For many, the closeness of this plot to our present lives may be too close for comfort. Like most great works though, Anthem attempts to capture a time and place, chronicling our present history through some of the most imaginative fiction I've ever read. For me, that makes it a fantastic read.

Noah Hawley takes what's been happening in our world and creates a dystopian novel of what could happen next in the near future. God, I hope he's wrong. Very dark and disturbing but gets high points from me for creativity and laying it all out there.

I received an arc of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a difficult book to read. Set a few years after the COVID pandemic we are still in, the author does not sugar coat the political and social climate and how views towards how to fight the virus divided the nation. At points throughout the book it almost felt like this whole thing was a farcical comedy and we were being made fun of, regardless of which side of the controversies we fall on. Did I mention it was a heavy read? It was long and disturbing. However, every time a character stated "we are on a mission from God" it was a mental break as I couldn't help but think of the Blues Brothers. Somehow I doubt that was the author's intention. Finally, I think the pretentious use of math throughout the book to drive home points that were already quite well made and the author's frequent breaking of the fourth wall got to be a bit much for me. This all coalesced in the epilogue where it went a bit too far and felt straight up preachy. So, while I might recommend this book, it might not be the right book for many right now.

Disturbing, Dark, and Depressing

4.5 stars

“The adults are lost. We, their children, are starting over.”

Anthem is an ambitious, dark, and dramatic novel about a spiraling post-Covid America. A suicide epidemic has infiltrated American teens, and the country is on the verge of a civil war. The apocalypse has begun, and it is up to three teenagers to save it all.

Simon, Louise, and a 15-year-old boy known as “the Prophet” have all been institutionalized for various reasons. The three bust out on a quest to start a utopia and save America.

There are multiple narrators, storylines, and timelines, including the voice of "the author" to add personal commentary.

Anthem is a social commentary on America and explores the themes of climate change, social media, the big pharma/opioid epidemic, politics, culture wars, and racism, to name a few.

This is an all too real, depressing read, grounded in reality. If you are not a fan of politics, don’t read this. The author, aka, the narrator, tries to stay neutral, but it is clear where his beliefs lie.

A cast of eccentric characters, including a Trump-like God-King; The Wizard; a Jeffrey Epstein-like character; an almost Supreme Court justice, an Opioid-magnate, and Q'anon followers pervade the pages.

This is a complicated and complex read. I can’t say I enjoyed it, and I almost gave up on it several times as I needed to escape the realities of the America that Hawley portrays. It’s a little too real, and in that sense, horrifying.

I would not want to read this again. However, it got under my skin, the characters, especially Simon and Louise, are easy to root for, and in the end, they offered a ray of hope in the darkness ahead.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

DNF
I loved Noah Hawley's previous book, "Before the Fall." I grabbed "Anthem" and dove into in not knowing what it was about. The writing was amazing and I saved several quotes that summed up what seemed to be the state of the world today.
I had to stop reading because so much of the beginning dove into the suicide of children and young adults. Having a preteen and a teenager in my house, it was a little to scary to think about.

I think this could be a great book for some, but maybe not for the parents of young adults. I'm sorry I didn't get past that part.

I was so eager to read a new book by author Noah Hawley that I didn’t wait to find out what it was about. I had read two previous books and loved them. ANTHEM is not a book I would have chosen if I had waited and read reviews before picking it up. It makes me, as a reader, ask myself all sorts of questions about what I (might) owe a well-liked author in his quest to sort through serious issues about “the fate of the world as we know it.” Often I am more than willing to accompany an author on just exactly that kind of quest because I gain so much from it.

That did not happen here, I am so sorry to say. At least for me. Other reviewers did experience great things while reading it. I appear to be a minority opinion. There’s just too much going on and all of it is scattershot.

I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

An epidemic of suicides is occurring among America’s youth. When three kids escape the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, they have a mission to stop The Wizard.

Wow, this is a heavy read, but important too. The author definitely has a unique style and I am looking forward to reading more of his books. This is a lengthy read. It did slow down for me towards the middle but then picked up again. This is one you really want to take your time with and absorb the meaning behind the writing.

“We choose a reality, you see, just as we choose our god. And the man who believes in ghosts and demons can no more accept Stephen Hawking’s empire of reason than Stephen Hawking could retire to the land of werewolves.”

Anthem comes out 1/4.