Fantastically written, very compelling, with four stories that feel rich despite how quickly they move forward. I really enjoyed this one!

Rachel Swirsky is one of the most thoughtful, provocative writers in contemporary science fiction. Her work embodies the human experience with all its pathos and glory, without ever preaching or descending into hyperbole. In January Fifteenth, she begins with asking “What if…?” What if Universal Basic Income happened? Who would it help, and how? Which problems would it solve, and which make worse? And how many lives would be untouched, because some problems cannot be solved by money?

Instead of an exposition-laden diatribe, Swirsky takes us inside the lives of four very different women. With compassion but notably without judgment, she plays out their days before, the day of, and after the annual UBI payouts.

Hannah is a middle-aged mother fleeing an abusive ex-spouse, an escape made possible by her monthly UBI. But “doing a geographic” cannot solve her well-founded fears of discovery, nor can it take the place of unexpected and effective help.

Janelle is a single, Black, struggling journalist wrestling with a rebellious, activist younger sister. Her life has become an unending drudge of barely making ends meet by interviewing strangers about UBI, even though her sister and—formerly—she herself opposed the policy.

Sarah, a pregnant teenager, a prisoner of a religious cult that practices child marriage, polygamy, and keeping women poor and ignorant, trudges to the UBI disbursement center. Her money will not buy her freedom, even if she could imagine such a thing, for it belongs her elderly husband.

Finally, Olivia parties with her wealthy, entitled college student friends, vying for who can spend their UBI in the most wasteful fashion. Her life is a parade of drug-induced visions, superficial relationships, and fear that her parents will find out she’s flunked out. On the surface, she is the most financially well-off character, yet by far the most enslaved.

January Fifteenth is science fiction at its best: stories that are challenging, accessible and, most of all, human.

Recommended.

A light science fiction that doesn't feel like sci-fi taking place in the near future where most Americans have access to Universal Basic Income. We follow four women (?) characters as they navigate the day they receive their yearly allotment of UBI or oobi. I loved that the story was told from various perspectives and women in different social structures. The themes explored in the novel were more surface-level (such as racism, abuse, etc) and I wished it could explore further.

January Fifteenth, a short story by Rachel Swirsky, is a poignant and stunning exploration of loss, grief, and memory. The narrative follows Erica, the protagonist, as she grapples with the death of her mother and the painful memories that continue to haunt her.

Swirsky's writing is both evocative and profound, beautifully interweaving Erica's past and present to create a vivid and deeply moving portrait of a woman in mourning. The story is a powerful reminder of the significance of storytelling, demonstrating how narratives and memories can aid us in processing and comprehending our experiences.

An outstanding and thought-provoking work of fiction that will deeply resonate with readers who have experienced loss or struggled with the weight of memory. Swirsky's talent and sensitivity as a writer are on full display in this compelling and heartfelt story.

DNF at 49% i just couldn't get into it. I'm not really sure who this book was written for because I just did not find it appealing and was having a hard time connecting to any of the characters. It seemed well-written, but not as thought-provoking as I believe the author intended it to be.

This book is a departure from what I often read, but that can be a very good thing. For me, there are a few indicators of a book's quality. One is how it engages you in the moment. Another is how it lingers on the brain long after you've read the last page.

January Fifteenth follows several characters on the day when they'll receive their universal basic income-type payment in a future America. It highlights how people are conditioned to accept the order of their society, and the events that could cause them to reject that order. It also shows how the government and financial transactions leave people vulnerable to abusers by enabling victims to be tracked. And it shows a media whose roll has become pacification, slice of life stories about the UBI day, rather than a look at hard truths about society.

I was glad the author didn't try to fall on one side of the argument about UBI. It had both good and bad merits. Through Sarah, we see how abusers use the system to control women, when that system should ensure women have financial independence. We see how it enables the privileged to be wasteful and devalues their lives.

This is a quiet book, and it builds slowly to the conclusions of the women's stories. I can appreciate that some might not prefer that type of story; however, I've found myself thinking about this book a lot since I read it. Often, we think doing this one thing or that thing would fix society's problems. January Fifteenth shows us that even UBI won't do that. It may fix some things, but every system created by man can be manipulated and abused by people, too, and-while the author isn't saying UBI is bad-perhaps the take-away is that there are deeper problems in our society that must be addressed along with financial inequality.

A fascinating premise, and one that emphasizes the fact that, no matter what systems governments install, they impact real people with divergent needs. Consequently, it's really hard to come up with systems that work for everyone.

Readers looking for a definitive statement on the value or misguidedness of UBI as a concept will not find it in January Fifteenth. They will, however, find a compelling story about people, told with nuance, conviction, and style. While individual characters have clear thoughts, motivations, and agendas, there is no proselytising from the book itself, beyond an unwavering commitment to human dignity. You may approach January Fifteenth with a few questions about UBI, but you will likely leave with several more to guide further reading; with yet more blueprints to design your own traffic jams.

This book follows four ladies on January fifteenth, the day payments are distributed. There’s Olivia, whose friends treat it as a waste day and come up with elaborate ways to use it up. Sarah is a member of the FLDS cult and has to walk on foot with her sister wives and community to collect. Janelle is a freelance journalist tasked with collecting stories every January fifteenth. Hannah is constantly fleeing her abusive ex wife with her two sons, and each distro day, it seems more likely that Abigail will show up and wreak havoc.

It brings up interesting points about our society and is an excellent character study. It serves as a reminder that one guarantee doesn’t fix a broken system, but it would affect all of us in different ways and that’s the interesting part, the humanity of it. I really enjoyed it. Obvs I finished it so quickly. It’s out now wherever you get your books, so check it out.

January Fifteenth is the kind of book that I have never read before. It was very interesting and thought provoking. I enjoyed being in the minds of the characters.

January Fifteenth is a near-future, science fiction novella plotted around the implementation of Universal Basic Income in the United States; to do this, it focuses on the stories of four different women and what they do as disbursement day—January 15th—approaches.

It’s clear this novella is thought out and well-researched. It definitely provides realistic (if harrowing) depictions of what UBI might look like in practice instead of in theory. Aside from a few places, this novella reads like it could be set in the present day rather than the near future. I appreciated the diversity in the main cast and their different walks of life.

What was lacking for me in this novella was depth of character. January Fifteenth felt almost academic in tone, glossy and polished. I think this will work for some readers, but to me, I wish the four main characters had been a little more robust and developed. Without investment in their stakes, the overall arc of the novella fell flat to me, especially since there’s intentionally not much detail given to UBI and how it works in this world as well.

If an exploration of the human impact of Universal Basic Income interests you as a reader, January Fifteenth may work better for you. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a standout for me.

Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.

I would give this five stars, except I think the author makes some foundational errors. Namely that unalterable features of UBI is that it would go to everyone, and everyone would get the same about. Even accepting these premises, I don't believe all of the scenarios envisioned are probable, or even possible, outcomes.

I wish there hadn’t been a foreword, or that it had been placed as an afterword. It made me wary going into this. I have some pretty strong opinions on UBI, and seeing open mindedness towards the easily debunkable specter of a “welfare state,” an immensely racist and classist relic, was irritating. Not all ideas deserve the same weight, not all opinions are valuable.

Despite this apparent even handed approach, and the author's admission that she doesn't know whether UBI is ultimately a good idea, this story paints a rather tragic and dystopian picture through the lenses she uses to present the topic, for all that it's a mixed bag.

<spoiler>
<b>Writing</b>

The writing is excellent. The word usage, the cadence, the lovely and concise descriptions, the character’s personalities bleeding into the narrative. I knew I’d enjoy reading this from the first line.

The author doesn’t only mention race when the character isn’t white, which is a relief. It’s an interesting choice to capitalize “white”. Whether intentional or not, it makes a statement, a different one depending on your take on the capitalization of so-called racial groups (as does me disparaging the inherent bigotry in racial designations). I noticed it first, and only, in Janelle’s part. She’s Black woman, and I wonder what her opinion on it would be. I wonder what people think when I capitalize one and not the other. See?

I don’t know I feel about the Black POV character being the only one cognizant of race. It's only in her chapters we learn what skin tones other people have. I can relate to this sort of hypersensitivity—often I'm the only mixed person in a room, classrooms where every other student was male, and so on —and perhaps Janelle is the only character who's in locations with diverse groups. It says something, but I'm not sure exactly what.

Not super into deadnaming trans characters, even by the character herself. I’d personally rather not know, but I do know some people who are pretty open with it and wouldn’t mind. I could take it or leave it.

Neuts? Femme neuts? Hilarious. If some kid in the future calls me this I'll die laughing.

One error: Janelle's sister is said to be 14. Later this gets changed to 16.

<b>Plot/Characters</b>

Hannah is a mother of two in New England. She’s on the run from her abusive ex-wife.

Janelle is a freelance journalist in Chicago. She’s raising her younger sister after their parents died. She interviews people on UBI day and is uniquely positioned to hear diverse experiences with the program.

Olivia is a wealthy college student on winter break in Colorado. Her friends call it Waste Day. She’s on the quieter side and feels out of place with the other rich kids from her high school, though they are all very dedicated to getting and staying drunk. There's a competition to see who can waste their UBI in the most frivolous way.

Sarah’s a pregnant teenager in a polygamist cult in Utah. She is forced to march in protest at having to get the UBI in person. Her brother Toby, like many young boys in FLDS compounds, was recently beaten and abandoned to fend for himself.

We follow these four characters through their day. For most of them, we don't hear their opinions on UBI, but see how the people around them feel. We also see how UBI has personally impacted them, both the positive and negative consequences.

Accepting the state of the world and the book's internal logic, the plot is captivating. We follow these women and their personal experiences with UBI. The path it created out of an abusive relationship, becoming resigned to the imperfect world you predicted, children created and used as mobile ATMs, detachment and drug abuse.

<b>Worldbuilding</b>

I have problems with this vision of UBI. I hope, if it ever does happen, it’s a sensical system. Politicians, seemingly as a rule, suck at finance and economics.

One payment on one day. It could be biweekly, monthly, quarterly, staggered so it’s not
all on the same day. It makes for a better story, I’m sure, but realistically? Nah.

It supplanted SSI. Why? There is no compelling, logically sound reason why this has to happen. It would be a bad idea, in my opinion, to exchange other forms of welfare for UBI. It would defeat the purpose of it, and I’d run out of characters if I explained why I thought so. Basically, there are extremely predictable, demonstrable consequences. UBI and other welfare programs can coexist. We have the money.

No sliding scale or eligibility requirement/means testing. Super easy to come up with ones that wouldn’t have a leveling effect or backfire. SSI, for example, which has very little fraud and big consequences for any who try.Unemployment, in some states, requires people to actively search for jobs and report every two weeks.

It’s disbursed in person, in Utah. I cannot stress how millions of people collecting checks in person would be bad for an already bloated bureaucratic system. Not to mention the environmental impact of the transit, energy usage, transaction costs. It simply isn’t rational.

A corollary to the above, UBI would necessarily be a federal program, though states could elicit their own programs funded by the state treasury. Congress would have the constitutional authority to dictate how and when federal money is disbursed. A Congress able to pass a UBI law should be able to retain that power and not delegate it to the states, unless such a scheme was written into the legislation. Here it seems as if states wrested that power from the federal government after the fact, which I don't think would be legally possible. Congress would be telling the states what to do, not the other way around, if for some reason it was not a direct payment from the US Treasury. States can give more rights, they can't take federal rights (from federal legislation) away. Fourteenth amendment etc.

Children receiving UBI and it being placed in the trust of their guardians. Abuse of this could be prevented by (a) not giving it to kids at all; (b) putting it into a trust until they are of age; (c) additional money for guardians i.e. sliding scale

The US trying to take tribal land. Tribal property rights are complex, a mixture of old treaties, public and private purchases. They are semi-sovereign territories in the US. The government can't, constitutionally, just take land. There has to be a good reason, no alternative, and the landowner has to be compensated. There's an ongoing billion dollar lawsuit about the Black Hills. I can't see a climate catastrophe that would lead to property law being tossed out in its entirety.

The inept execution of UBI aside, there were other logical issues I had with the world building took me out of the narrative. Things such as religious exemptions to anti-abortion laws, which have consistently failed in court, and the reintroduction of forced sterilization, led me to believe that this near future world is drastically different from our own.

Cell phones have been supplanted by things called wristers with a feature called wavve. There’s like an actual company with that name so I was confused for a minute. Anyway, they have projection displays and are worn on the wrist. It doesn't strike me as practical technology, especially if everyone is privy to your conversations, but it's still a neat idea.

The new slang and fashions were interesting. I could see stuff like that catching on. Neut, though, sounds way too much like “neutered’’ and not “neutral” like I think it’s meant to be.

</spoiler>

<b>Conclusion</b>

This was one of my favorite reads this year, even with the myriad issues I had. We see a complex, if not necessarily feasible, portrait of what the near future could look like, and ways in which choices made at the federal level impact individuals. Plus, it's well written. Thank fuck.

9 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books to Jazz Up Your June

January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky
(Tordotcom Publishing, June 14)

Talk about speculative fiction: Swirsky’s novella takes the polarizing debate over Universal Basic Income and imagines a near-future in which the UBI program has been around long enough for various present-day predictions about it to come true—and to envision UBI scenarios beyond what’s currently being pondered. Titled for the day on which UBI is disbursed, January Fifteenth visits the women whose lives government money could change, like a single mother fleeing her abusive partner or a cult’s pregnant child-bride, and those who would waste it, like a rich girl and her shallow high school friends. Linking them all is the freelance reporter trying to find a new angle when UBI becomes old news.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
In “January Fifteenth” by Rachel Swirsky, four women’s stories are told in the backdrop of the near-future, where the United States government has developed the “UBI” (Universal Basic Income) program, delivered each year to citizens on January 15th.
This novella is a compelling look at racism, sexual assault, the LGBTQ community and poverty as experienced by our protagonists Hannah, Janelle, Olivia and Sarah. One, a woman escaping her abusive wife with two young children in town; the other, a Black journalist raising her orphaned sister while trying to capture the UBI program from the perspective of its recipients; an entitled rich kid with money to spare and a fifteen year old pregnant cult member. All four women have different tragedies to overcome, and Swirsky has a different character narrate each chapter, as their “day in the life” that is January 15th unfolds.
I generally am not a fan of short stories but Swirsky manages to not only develop some pretty impressive characters but she also constructs a creative and emotional plot. Each character gets as much of an ending as you would expect from a novella, but it is enough to provide some closure and satisfaction. “January Fifteenth” has enough stamina that Swirsky could’ve turned it into a full blown novel, and I definitely think she has the talent to take it there, but the quick chapters made this an easily-read-in-one-day story that sticks with you, and Swirsky still manages to push all the emotional buttons.

This was a really interesting concept for a novel. Centered around four different women on the day they receive their UBI, the story follows them through the day as they must make life changing decisions and attempt to survive. While I enjoyed the read, it did leave me wanting more. I only feel like half of the characters had a substantial change over the course of the novel.

This book is weird, but also compulsively readable. Set in a near-future America, every January fifteenth the government disperses UBI checks. In the setting of this book, four women are dealing with different struggles while trying to survive. Hannah left her abusive ex-wife, but every year on January 15 her wife finds her again so while she goes to collect her UBI she has her two sons hide in the apartment where they’ll be safe until she gets back. Janelle used to be an activist and against UBI, but after the death of her parents she’s taking care of her sister and part of her responsibilities includes includes doing interviews every UBI day. Olivia reunites with her high school friends where they throw a waste day party to see who can most effectively waste their UBI money because they already have more money and privilege than they know what to do with. And Sarah is a young girl, pregnant and walking to collect her UBI with her sister-wives, while also dealing with seeing her younger brother beaten and abandoned by her family.

I don’t know if I understand the point of the story and in some ways it feels like a nebulous story with no clear beginning, middle, end. The whole novella occurs over 24-hour period so nothing the women are going through is completely resolved. It is definitely an interesting story and has several threads that lend themselves to thinking critically about how UBI might impact people and the realities they experience. I was definitely intrigued and I think this is a book folks would enjoy, but for me it leaves me feeling unmoored, maybe largely because things aren’t resolved so it feels difficult to leave these characters behind. Which well may be the point!

Normally, I’d spend much of this review delving into the social, economic, cultural, and political ramifications of Universal Basic Income, because one of the hazards (I call it perks, but I’m a weirdo) of being a Geography major is taking Economic Geography, where you end up talking about the ups and downs of UBI programs the world over: where they have been implemented, how they’ve been implemented, and the pros and cons of each country’s UBI programs. But… no offense to anyone reading this review in the future, but I’ve had just about enough of anything political as of this date after the last few days and so I’m just going to stick by the brilliant manner in which Rachel Swirsky decides to explore a theoretical United States in the future where a UBI program has been implemented and how it affects the lives of four different women from four walks of life.

Some might consider this book a novella, but it’s really not. It’s simply on the shorter side of a novel at 242 pages (novellas are 200 pages or under). I’m glad Swirsky stuck to less than 250 pages for this book, set it all within one day, and split the narrative between just four characters and how they each spend their “Windfall Day” (AKA the day when every American receives their UBI payment). Any longer and it would’ve been milking the material. This format and length keeps the book moving, keeps the material fresh and crisp with no lag time. Clever move.

I have to imagine one of the tougher parts for Swirsky was to pick the four women and their backgrounds to give us readers a diverse set of characters to see a few possible perspectives of how a UBI could affect people in the US. There’s Hannah, a single mom who’s hiding from her abusive, stalker ex-wife who always manages to find her on Windfall Day; there’s Janelle, who used to rage against the very political machines who thought up the UBI legislation even though it was evident it was skewed to (once again) give minorities and marginalized peoples the shaft but has since lost all her passion to fight; there’s Olivia, who’s a wealthy college kid who hangs out with other wealthy college kids on what other people call “Windfall Day” but they call it “Waste Day” and simply spend the day blowing all their UBI on the most absurd things they can think of; and there’s Sarah, a FLDS child-bride who’s 15 and very pregnant and may be considering leaving her husband and sister-wives after they lied to her and took her brother away late one night. In the course of one Windfall Day, all of these women see their lives changed: not because of the money the UBI brings, but because of how the UBI affects either their lives or the lives of people around them.

This book is the kind of pure speculative fiction I love, where anthropology, philosophy, thought experiments, and poignant prose come together to create entertaining and palatable prose that will linger in your brain and keep you thinking for a very long time.

Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for granting me early access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Universal Basic Income is the law of the land. And January 15th, is the day the money is disbursed. Hannah has been able to flee her abusive wife with her two kids with the money. Janelle is a journalist who interviews folks on the day that they get the money. Olivia is a rich college student who doesn't need the money. And Sarah is a pregnant teenager who lives in a religious cult whose members collect their money. UBI means something different to each of these women.

This is a near future story following these four women on the day that the UBI is disbursed and together these stories give a snapshot into society in a slice-of-life type story. I definitely enjoyed it, but it's basically four short stories squished into a novella that makes it feel a bit disjointed. I would've preferred to see one or two of them or just a longer book exploring the themes more.

I really liked each story arc and the writing is engaging, just wished there was more. Specifically, my favorite set was Janelle and her sister's story since I think it provides the most insight into the world that they are living in and I really liked their dynamic. The others were good, but the rich kid's story was the hardest to follow since she is effectively on drugs for most of her story. Overall, recommend.

Thank you to Torbooks and Netgalley for this e-arc!

Publsihed by ‎ Tor.com on June 14, 2022

January 15 is Universal Basic Income Day, the holiday when everyone collects their money. UBI was born in “an extraordinary act of political will” after the world reached the brink of nuclear war. People were so happy to be alive, Janelle explains, that they decided to save the world, settling on UBI as the solution. Maybe the concept is Rachel Swirsky’s reaction to pandemic payments made to people who didn’t need them. The book’s premise doesn’t necessarily make sense (the link between nuclear annihilation and a universal income is less than clear), but it provides the foundation for the story that follows.

Janelle supported the idea of making things better, but now realizes that “making things better doesn’t always work.” Almost as soon as UBI was enacted, the wealthy began looking for ways to take it away from those who need it the most, particularly if they have dark skin (like Janelle) or are naturalized citizens. Inevitably, some of those who could have used the money productively spend it on drugs or cults. Janelle’s sister believes reparations would be more just than UBI. One of Swirksy’s points seems to be that society can help people but can’t force people to help themselves.

Unfortunately, Swirsky seems to have been more interested in making points than in telling a cohesive story. January Fifteenth follows four sets of characters who are linked only by the fact that their stories unfold on UBI Day.

Janelle and Nevaeh are sisters conducting interviews for aggregators, gathering reactions to UBI Day. They ask school kids how their parents will spend their money. They enter banks and talk to people who are depositing their checks. They talk to shoppers in malls. Some people blame UBI for breeding laziness and encouraging people not to get jobs, but nobody seems to be refusing the money. Apart from offering transcripts of other people’s reactions to UBI, the chapters that follow Janelle and Nevaeh focus on their sibling relationship, how they were raised, and how Janelle is raising Neveah now that their parents are dead.

Hannah is having issues with her violent ex-wife. They have two sons to whom ex-wife Abigail gave birth, but Hannah is keeping them in hiding with the help of an older woman who has military training and doesn’t take Abigail’s crap.

Sarah is a pregnant fifteen-year-old who needs to see mainstream Mormon social workers. Sarah is married to a non-mainstream husband whose other wives are regarded as Sarah’s sister-wives. Sarah doesn’t appreciate being judged by the mainstreams.

Olivia is partying with other students from elite colleges on UBI Day. Rich people are competing to waste their UBI money creatively, but Olivia hasn’t entered the contest. She’s tripping on something similar to Ecstasy while two other party goers, a male and a female, argue about whether Olivia consented to the sex she had with the male.

The permutations of gender play a strong background role in the novel. Nevaeh changed her birth-assigned gender. Janelle is uncomfortable interviewing children because some parents become upset when she asks kids about their preferred gender pronouns. (To Janelle, the question is only polite.) Janelle and Nevaeh argue about teen slang for gender, which has broadened considerably in this near future. Janelle prefers traditional terms like trans, cis, and nonbinary, but traditional is the last thing that language ever wants to be.

Class is another social issue that receives prominent attention. Wealthy people euphemistically refer to the poor as “the mobile class.” Janelle has heard rumors that Native women have been told they must be sterilized to collect their UBI.

The story’s emphasis on various social issues — rape and domestic violence, race and class and gender, oppression in its many forms, bulimia, the impact of religious cults on teenage girls, social welfare — deprives the novel of focus. The story is scattered through the four sets of characters who seemingly exist only to allow Swirksy to check as many social-issue boxes as she could, I’m all in favor of science fiction that asks how social issues might be addressed in the future, but none of the issues here benefit from the deep dive that sf at its best provides.

Swirsky’s larger theme seems to be that attempts to solve problems will inevitably create new problems. Government services were cut to pay for UBI, with devastating impacts for people who lost in-home care and students who no longer receive free lunches. Nor does UBI solve other problems, including collapsing mines in Appalachia and the influx of climate refugees. The novella-length book is a long walk to illustrate the obvious conclusion that no solution to any social problem will be perfect. While characters offer interesting and diverse opinions that might spark book club discussions, the novella as a whole lacks resolution and never coheres into a work that is larger than its parts.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

January Fifteenth is a novella, following four people on the day that UBI is released, and how it effects people through different circumstances and social spheres.

UBI is Universal Basic Income. A set amount of money for everyone, no matter their social and economic standing, no matter their work or lack of work. January Fifteenth follows the effects on four women - one in hiding from her abusive ex-wife, who was able to escape because of UBI; one who comes from money and celebrates with friends as a way to waste their UBI; one from a strict Mormon background; and finally, a journalist who interviews people on January Fifteenth about their feelings on UBI.

Because this was a novella, we don’t get a lot of time with each character, moving through the day from morning to evening on the day UBI is released. The novella moves quickly through the day, outlining each woman’s life, and how she spends the day. Through the journalist, we see how other people react to it as well in brief glimpses. I do wish we had a bit more time with the characters, as each were fascinating in their own way, and as a fully fleshed out novel I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more, especially with some of the abrupt endings to each woman’s day.

This was a political charged book, as is any discussion of UBI, but I thought it was handled well in terms of allowing the look at different walks of life and how different people would feel about it. The only thing that I felt was lacking was how it came to be. We get small mentions of why, of threats of war and nuclear winter, but it’s never fully addressed, which is another reason why I think I would have liked a full novel, to give more political background.

All in all, this was an interesting little novella, especially right now. While I wanted more, it was still a solid little novella that I enjoyed my brief reading session with. It leaves a lot to think about, and to imagine, which is all I can ask for from a book.

Both thought-provoking and a little shallow, JANUARY FIFTEENTH asks the question: what would America be like with a universal basic income? Swirsky makes the decision to pick all “extreme” cases to really show off how various people would use their UBI money and react to it, even after several years. Hannah the domestic abuse victim who finally has enough money in her own name to get away but can’t stop running because her ex always finds her. Olivia the rich girl whose rich friends spend their free money on exorbitant pranks and parties. Janelle the jaded activist-turned-journalist who is raising her younger sister after their parents died and whose main job is interviewing people about the UBI on the day the checks come in. And Sarah who’s 15 and pregnant in an oppressive polygamist cult.

It took a while to really get the hang of who the characters were because the chapters are short (the whole book is short) and we switch POVs pretty frequently. I think the real star of the book is Janelle; her sections were always the longest and her perspective had the widest scope. And Olivia’s was the most engaging (in part because Olivia spends the whole time inebriated so her perspective is intriguingly warped, but also because each of the other characters in Olivia’s sections are so distinct). With Sarah and Hannah, I think we just didn’t spend enough time with them. They felt a bit more like caricatures than characters.