Will recommend to people who enjoy the eco-political; fans of Harrow, How to Blow up a Pipeline etc.

Willa Marks was raised by conspiracy-theory alarmist parents. As an adult, Willa leaves home but is stuck in a dead-end job. Until, that is, she meets Sylvia Gill, a Harvard professor who studies social movements. Sylvia is everything Willa has been looking for, and the professor has all the right answers for Willa's growing concerns about the earth and environment.
Unfortunately, Sylvia winds up betraying Willa and her beliefs, but Willa finds a book on Sylvia's shelf - by someone named Roy Adams - which motivates Willa. The book is practically a guide to mobilizing people to combat climate change. Adams is gather disciples at his Camp Hope on the island of Eleutheria so Willa packs a few things and heads off, determined to change the world.

As Adams delays his plans for massive change, the shine starts to fade away from Camp hope and Willa begins to realize that there's more to Hope and Adams than meets the eye.

On the surface this seems like precisely the kind of book I'd be truly excited for. An environmental theme, a hint of science fiction, and a lost protagonist finding her way.

Unfortunately the book spends more time in character emotional distress than exploring the themes present.

I was bored very quickly into the book and nothing happened to change this for me. Willa never rose to be a protagonist worth following. She was as dull and listless as the life she led. With the appearance of Sylvia, I had hopes that there was something happening, but I was disappointed. Then, with the appearance of Roy, I again had some hopes. Here, at least, the story seemed to develop, but it was too little, too late for this reader.

Sometimes, when I don't enjoy a book, I will look at other reviews to see if there's something I missed in my reading - I would (and have) read the book again if reviews are so overwhelmingly positive. In this case, I agree with another reviewer who wrote that this reads like a YA book with adults. Angsty and emotion driven. If this is your thing, then you might enjoy this book.

Looking for a good book? Eleutheria by Allegra Hyde is a YA book dressed up in adult clothes, but lacks a hook to hang on to this reader.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Engaging right until the very end. Had conflicting emotions throughout, but was completely satisfied at the end.

This book is hard to describe but easy to fall in love with. Allegra Hyde balances a lot in this title, and I was hooked from the beginning. Thank you for the ARC.

Thank you for the opportunity to review Eleutheria, an interesting fictional(ish) commentary on current events. I enjoyed the work, though I'm wondering if it was perhaps the wrong time for me to read it. On one hand, one would think it's the *perfect* time to read something like this, We are in this moment in history. The discomfort (or lack of full enjoyment) is entirely mine- I think what is really appealing to me is an escape from current events. That's not on Hyde, and I think in another time I'd have enjoyed this much more. People should certainly give it a read and see for themselves where it lands. (Star rating 4 is higher than I am feeling emotionally, but probably fair to the actual work)

Fascinating plot and gorgeous sentences. Doomsday preppers, influencers, radical climate change activists...these are all my keywords!! I was moved by the authenticity of the relationships and desires in this book, and I hope anyone who reads it will become more attune to the climate crisis. How do we live normally when there's so much falling apart? The ending felt a bit rushed to me, but I had such a nice time getting there that I didn't mind at all.

This was an intriguing story, perfect for today with its eco-political themes and a good choice for book clubs to discuss.

Eleutheria is an ambitious novel. Part climate fiction, part mystery, part science fiction, it touches on a lot of different topics.

Main character Willa, has come out the other side of her survivalists upbringing, making her way to the big city and the acquaintance of Sylvia, who posses a book, Living the Solution, the contents of which prompt Willa to travel Eleutheria in order to participate in a climate oriented project with the hopes of creating a utopia..

This book on paper seemed to have good potential but it fell flat of my expectations for it. It dragged in the last half.

I enjoyed the premise of this book but I think it's too mature for the middle schoolers. I like the idea of questioning your beliefs and then questioning them again.

I really didn't enjoy this book until about the last 20%, and probably should have abandoned it. Willa grew up in a family of doomsday preppers, with an odd childhood that reminded me of "Educated" by Tara Westover. When her parents die, she lives with two similarly strange cousins in Boston, and then eventually flees to the island of Eleutheria in the Bahamas, to be part of Camp Hope, a strange commune of ecowarriors with a goal of saving the world. I appreciated that the author tackled the terrifying topic of climate change and what the world may soon look like, with it being set in the not-too-distant future, though a year was not given. However, the plot jumped around in chronology, from the present day Camp Hope to Willa's childhood to her strange relationship with a professor in Boston. I found it really difficult to get invested in either the plot or the characters, most of whom were so odd that I had to wonder what kind of mental health issues I was supposed to understand they had. This was very literary, with some beautiful sentences and phrasing, but the plot was so slow-moving and characters so unrelatable that I really can't recommend it.

This was interesting! I want to begin by saying that Hyde is a brilliant writer, I cannot over-emphasize how just how well Hyde writes and how much of this relies on Hyde being able to effectively convey their point. This is really fresh and engaging, I haven't read anything like this before. Character development is off the charts, the plot is interesting, and meta-commentary is poignant and deeply necessary.

This book was interesting, I thought the plot was kind of brilliant. The problem was I didn't really relate to or like any of the characters very much. On a quest to save the world from climate change to the island of Eleutheria, Willa gives a background of how her parents prepared her for this type of survival because they were conspiracy theorists. It was a very enjoyable read, but it was a bit anti-climatic for my taste.

Thank you so much to @netgalley for this advanced reader's copy for an honest review.

“To conserve and correct,
To preserve and protect,
I dedicate myself to the Earth,
For each day I give my worth.”

Well well well, what do we have here? Elutheria, with its appealing lyrical Greek pulled me in at first sight. I had no idea what was expecting me when I requested to read this but it was one hell of a surprisingly catastropic journey. Willa Marks is a traumatic young woman, who was brought up by survivalist parents. Her early life is spent in building bunkers and shelters and unique learning survivalist skills preparing her for all kinds of natural disasters and conspiracy theories. Later when she finds herself in a big city, meets Sylvia and accidentally find a book called “Living the Solution”, she believes that she’s found her life purpose and flies to Elutheria - a small Bahama island - to fulfil her lifelong dream of saving the planet. There, a cultish group led by a mysterious man is building an ecological utopia preparing for a “launch” to create a political avalanche which will eventually save the earth:

“Camp Hope will offer a problem-solved society. Not just carbon-neutral but carbon negative. Not just coexistent with nature, but actively rehabilitatory. Camp Hope will show an environmental future that doest not appear punitive, but rather appealingly problem-solved.”

As Marks integrates herself in this new-found community, she discovers the reality behind the utopia and starts questioning everything.
I have to say this book had so much potential from the beginning and it kept my interest during the first half of it. I felt like there were some serious gaps that needed to be filled and the ending felt a bit rushed, it ended with more questions than answers. I wish there were more details about Camp Hope, Adams and even Deron. Overall an enjoyable read but a little underwhelming.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this title. This is definitely not the book for anyone who isn't ready to face the reality of where we're heading in the climate crisis. That said, it's a great work of speculative fiction that addresses that crisis without it overwhelming the entire narrative. It kept me wanting to know what would happen next, in all the various threads of storyline.

Some explosive climate fiction for those daring…

(and thank you @vintageanchorbooks for our gifted copy.)

This novel has been blurbed my some of my all-time favorite authors—Omar El Akkad, Kristin Arnett, Rumaan Alam, Kristin Valdez Quade and Bryan Washington—and, I demand you read.

Synopsis: “a story of idealism, activism, and systemic corruption, centered on a naïve young woman’s quest for agency in a world ravaged by climate change.”

ELEUTHERIA is so smart. I actually really hate when reviewers refer to books as smart, but this quite literally is… just that. It provoked a numbing feeling while the intersection of realism and activism unraveled, and overall is a really original take in the climate fiction world, especially with regard to working out this divisive collision. Also, Hyde can WRITE.

The story starts out in a very primal state and really never shook it off the pages. It’s disturbing and sticky, told through humidity and humanity’s continued advance into never-ending exploitative shiftiness. One narrative point I really appreciate in Hyde’s debut is the sly lesson on ineradicable, corruptive capitalism. Even in our greatest attempts to defeat the same systems we blame and fight, we still employ those systems in our efforts to rectify; cycles of toxicity that ignore the burdens lingering nearby, in order to fight our anxious feelings of culpability even when facing those burdens and feelings head on.

This metaphor evokes the question: what will it take? (And something the reader will have to uncover along the way.)

So yeah, I guess really loved this book. @allegrahyde be my friend, please.

Eleutheria is a gem amongst other cli-fi books in that it has strong, likeable, and deeply flawed characters with a plot that though at times verges on the unbelievable, serves as a perfect canvas for the strong character development and insights into culture that this novel presents. Willa's sheltered upbringing and tragic past leaves her vulnerable, naive, and idealistic. The people she meets along her journey all try to mold her to their way of life - from her quirky fame-chasing cousins to her intellectual and pragmatic lover - but no one reaches her until she reads a manuscript and has a revelation. Read this novel if you like strong character development and stories with magnetic personalities.

Eleutheria was my first foray into Climate Fiction and this alone is why people should read this book. The prose was beautifully written, the characters all flawed and captivating and you were hooked after page 1.

I really enjoyed this book but with any debut novel, it had its faults. It was long winded at times, went back and forth in time with little context but overall drove the message home that we are all discovering ourselves and how we fit into this world while impacting our earth in disastrous ways.

This book was a LOT. Parts of it felt too slap-you-in-the-face and parts of it felt too much like, wait did something important happen in that one sentence 2 pages back? The time setting was interesting, because it felt both like it was totally contemporary and also like it was 10-15 years into more nightmares before we get there.

I think that i am too literal for this book, and it is too literary for me. I was compelled by it and even though lots of the reviews say the ending was rushed, i actually liked it and feel like if the whole book had been paced like that i might have rated it higher!

2.5 stars rounded up because of the end. This was an ARC from NetGalley.

This felt like something I would like, but it didn't grab me. I ended up not finishing this title. I really think that others will enjoy it though.

I really thought I would love this book, but it turns out it just wasn't for me. I may pick up and try it again another time, but I had a terrible time getting into it.

Willa learns about a group of "ecowarriors" and flies to the Bahamas to join their cause and live at Camp Hope. All in all, this should have interested me, however, I think the writing style maybe put me off a bit. I would have loved this if it was a little more like a thriller instead of a literary fiction. Overall, this one wasn't for me, but I do plan to pick it up again in the future and give it another try.