Blake Hamner (n is silent) is a PR consultant to "The Leader" and has to solve one problem after the other.🤔

Oh, how I hate how ridiculous, and still frighteningly real this was.😬
The situations Hamner finds himself in which he will need to spin, sound so out there, but the explanations he eventually gives, seem like they are taken from real life scenarios.🧐
It is meant to be satire and dystopian, but it did make me think (as a good dystopian novel should do).🤯

I of course did not only internalize the absurdity and gravity of everything.😅
I did let myself be entertained by the craziness of it all.😂
I had some laugh out loud moments and enjoyed my time listening to this story.🤣

It only reinforced my stance on PR and spin doctors.😒
They are dangerous people. They can skew anyone's perspective on facts, and that is horrifying.🤨

A great read/listen, dystopian satire at its best!💙

Blake Hamner joined the campaign that helped get Our Leader elected, and now he works as the President’s Crisis Communications Manager. As Our Leader gets crazier and more totalitarian as he goes on, there are a lot of crises to manage. When one of Our Leader’s steel hounds attacks the communications team at a press conference, the Hammer starts to reconsider his career choice. When a revolutionary accuses Our Leader of serious allegations and Hamner of covering them up, his job becomes even more of a nightmare.

This is a satirical story that sadly sounds plausible. I found it mildly humorous, but there was nothing that made me laugh out loud. Tristan Wright did a good job narrating the audiobook. I would recommend it for those who enjoy political satires.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.

This audiobook version of Utopia is excellent. The narrator's voice and pronunciation are easy to understand, and there is adequate spacing for pauses. The speed is a bit fast, but as audiobook readers allow you to change playback speed, it wasn't an issue.

Blake Hamner is the crisis management leader for Our Leader, current president of the United States. His job is to deal with the multiple crisis and situations caused by the increasingly mad and totalitarian president. An attack on the press team by one of the presidents robotic guard dogs had left him shaken and unsure of his job and a new revolutionary leader has accused him of covering up Our Leader disappearing his rivals/people that don’t agree with him. With him seeming to be trapped in his job, how will he spin this to come out on top and save his reputation?

This is a dark comedy and a biting satire of the American political system, the media, PR teams in general, and the Trump presidency and office. There are many many obvious jabs at how he behaved in office and how he handled actual crisis. The portrayal of Our Leader was an amazing piece of writing and he might be my favorite character in the story. This is a futuristic and over the top setting (technology has advanced very differently in this world than the real world) but it’s very well fleshed out. You really feel for Hamner as he struggled from crisis to crisis and desperately tried to stay afloat and fix everything. He makes a multitude of wrong choices but you can tell he’s trying. There are several dramatic plot twists to the end and I 100% didn’t see how everything was resolved coming. This is a nail biting exciting ride from start to finish.

Recommend this for fans of dark comedy, satire, political satire, and political fiction.

Utopia PR by Adam Bender was a riveting audiobook. Sometimes I love a short distopian audiobook and this one really delivered!

Set in the near future (though possibly not as far as I think), this great book often had making comparisons with dramas like the West Wing given as its focus is on the team trying to keep their president on track/message.

An interesting insight into how positive spin can be used for good and bad, as well as the tensions that often exist between the press and a government's communications team. This is a great book filled with wit, intrigue and genuine fear for life!

I've been seeing Utopia PR around a good amount over the last year or so, and this copy got me to take the plunge, so to speak.

I'm quite glad I did.

Utopia PR is a witty, clever story that hearkens back to Wag the Dog -- but at what cost.

We follow Blake Hamner, a former PR blogger turned Crisis Communications Manager, as he tries to avert what seems like daily crises in the wake of the musician-turned-president, nicknamed Our Leader. On top of being exhausted and overworked, he's the husband of one of the premier cable news network's lead anchor. When things start to get weird -- and serious, but mostly weird-- Hamner will face all kinds of decisions, primarily about where his priorities lie.

The book is more satire than laugh-out-loud comedy, although some fairly silly elements do slip in. Frankly, I thought some of the silliest components of the story struck close too home, but that's the goal of satire, I suppose.

The plot is a little messy, the characters are a bit archetypal, and the explanation for some of Hamner's mistakes feels a bit like a cop-out for this supposed PR genius, but the pacing and satire are absolutely on-point. This may not be the most structurally perfect read, but it is incredibly entertaining.

If you're into political satire beyond a satire about policy or decisions, and if you want a fast-moving book that might get too close to the truth here and there, this is a solid choice.

The narrator did a great job putting emotion into the story, and I'd gladly listen to more.

Actually when I chose to review this title I didn’t knew much about it, and you know what, is not about a utopia, in reality this is kind of the dystopian world that is all around us, when I listened to the audiobook, I related the president with my own first minister (Antonio Costa), please don’t think that the only country that have problems with their rulers is America, actually Antonio Costa when first went to power, he didn’t win the elections, he just embraced the left and that made him rise to power, he has family or have given money to almost all the Portuguese media, therefore, no one dares to speak against him, or against the PS.

The story of this book is really cleaver, it tackles the view of the PR, the real responsible s for who changes the view of the public, even a bad situation can be seen positively if someone controls what the public seems or understands. Hamner (the n is silent hahah that is almost a joke in the whole book) and his wife Maria, they are both likeable characters, they just worked too much and didn’t put their lives first and during the audiobook they are forced to open their eyes and see what is more important.
I enjoyed the person reading the audiobook, he managed to keep things interesting, this book made me think about what is important, how the media throw sand into the eyes of the public and how we the public are easily distracted of what is important.

I highly recommend this audiobook, is worth of our time for sure, I got a free copy of the audiobook in NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed listening to Utopia PR - especially that it was read by the author. I want to experience the story the way the author intends and I feel that there is always something lost in translation if someone else reads it, even if they are very skilled. The story was quirky without being corny with characters being both relatable and still "other" because of a future time & place. Situations become relatable through the authors quips about some timely cultural issues "...Our Leader certainly wouldn't call for their head on a pike..." But I can also appreciate the humor in characters who don't recognize their own current moment - "...dystopia? What's that?" Well-written and well-read book. Thoroughly enjoyable and it was a nice introduction to this author.

While listening to this audiobook, I could easily see it as a made-for-Netflix movie or limited series. I loved the banter between characters and the dry humor. I think it would play out nicely on screen.

The audiobook narrator was engaging and fun to listen to.

This speculative fiction was a little too close to home, as there were seemingly quite a few parallels to a previous American president...but all in all, an entertaining read/listen.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Blake Hamner is a Communication Specialist who is hired to put out fires or reframe something damaging The Leader has said or done into a positive light.
This book is a political satire which is why I chose it as I have never read one before. I found it entertaining and humorous but also a bit scary as it was a bit realistic at times as well.

I want to thank Netgalley for this advanced audio copy in exchange for my honest review.

If I lived in a different world than I see today, I wouldn't think this story was possible. But, PR and Politicians these days, well what can we say,. This is a fast paced, action, humorous, dystopian take on what PR seems to be about about, and it isn't the truth. The Hamner (silent N) had been at the top of his game looking after The Leader election. Any hare brain possibility is used to try and manipulate the general population. Now disaster after crisis after catastrophe needs public opinion to be deflected. But Hamner seems to be losing his mo-jo and is evaluating his work life balance, and future with his news reporter wife. This is a brilliant well written humorous story, and well worth reading. Thank you to Adam Bender and NetGalley for sending me an audio ARC. The views expressed are all mine freely given.

So, have you read "1984?"

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to listen to the audiobook prior to publication. Goodness, this was a journey. I felt the first 45 minutes were slow and I questioned if I wanted to finish. However, buckle up! We're taken on quite the ride through PR Crisis Manager Blake Hamner (n is silent). There exist oh-so-many parallels to today's political landscape I sometimes wondered if I was reading a non-fiction current or soon-to-happen account of our government.

If you're a fan of dystopia comedy, Adam Bender better be on your list.

Well this was such a brilliant, quirky read. It was clever, gave me some douglas adams as well as Christopher Moore vibes and i enjoyed it a lot!

The narrator was one of the best and covered this book perfectly! Kudos!!

I received a complimentary audio copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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Future. Crisis Communications specialist “The Hammer” Blake Hamner (the N is silent) has the complicated job of cleaning up public perspective whenever the U.S. government finds itself involved in a scandal. This future government, led by an uncouth, abrupt President is daily involved in inappropriate behavior. The scandals are huge and hardly imaginable. A computerized dog attacks and kills citizens. The president purposely drugs the milk supply with narcotics…. Blake must spin a web of lies (or at best half-truths) to sway public perception away from the obvious wrongs of the administration.

Blake is surrounded by a colorful cast of multi-dimensional, diverse characters, whose exaggerated idiosyncrasies are forgiven because they contribute greatly to the humorous storyline.

Blake’s lovely wife is a famous television news anchor. Her job is to report much of what goes on in the administration, whether lies or truth. The couple has an agreement in their marriage to keep work topics at work. These two workaholics, however, find that too much of the daily grind is getting in the way of their romance and their happiness.

The book is a satire, but at its core, the concepts of distract and re-direct in government is not that far off from reality. Trying to sway the peoples’ attention has been employed by governments ever since….well…..the beginning of governments.

This is a review of the audiobook, which I obtained on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I also read along in the Kindle ebook, which was no longer on NetGalley as it’s already been published.

The novel is a work of satirical speculative fiction.

The audio narrator, Tristan Wright, was well cast and did a great job reading the book. He started off in a plain vanilla, all American voice, but was terrific at conveying the zany humor and strange characters populating this novel. My one criticism of him was that he made a number of stumbles reading the text, pronouncing “Rolex” as “Rollocks” for example or reading tinny as tiny.

This book was most successful when it highlighted the author’s demented sense of humor. (He reminded me a bit of the British speculative fiction author, Charles Stross). There were large swathes of the book that made me laugh, with one hilarious episode after another. I was thinking this would be one of the funniest books I ever read.

Unfortunately, the author attempted to get more serious towards the end of the book. Not that he did that badly, as he’s an excellent writer who knows how to craft a story. It’s just that it ended as a fairly ordinary story of a loving married couple who decide their relationship is what matters, not the jobs that have been endlessly interfering with their love.

Anyway, it’s impossible to summarize the plot coherently. It’s mordantly funny speculative fiction. The main character (and narrator) is a married PR flack named Blake Hamner (pronounced “Hammer”) who works for the President (“Our Leader”), a liberal version of Trump in a near future America with robots, driverless vehicles, etc. His name is Ernest Prawnmeijer (“it sounded like a fishy hot dog”), and he’s short, chubby, single, and not particularly handsome. He has no prior political experience. What he has going for him is a fantastic tenor voice that won a TV singing contest. His fans love his music. Our Leader is also a crazy, uncontrollable, brutally tactless, dictator wannabe who seems incapable of discretion. He’s constantly doing things like making “extremely offensive remarks about Paralympians”. Or announcing a gun buyback program and “joking” that people who refuse to sell back their guns would be shot with them. So Blake, whose official title is “Crisis Communications Manager” and his colleagues are having to constantly clean up Our Leader's messes.

Things really start going south when some mechanical hounds that “Our Leader” has had built to guard his compound kill two people.

Blake and his colleagues have to come up with ways of spinning this (and many other crises). The genius social media director, Deb (who constantly speaks with hashtags..example: "hashtag #gross") starts Hashtag #HeroPup trending on Woozler (a funny version of Twitter on which people “Wooze” instead of Tweeting) and Blake suggests a social media naming contest for the robot hound.

Things devolve and more crises ensue. These include various crackpot projects that “Our Leader” demands. Such as a pilot project to make Americans happier by drugging them with milk. (Don’t ask…).

“When it’s no longer credible to deny, the only option is to divert”.

Blake and his colleagues dust off their “Grand List of Distractions”, which include, among other things:

4. Zoo prison break!
8. Require businesspeople to wear hats like in the old days.
9. Bacon festival, with free bacon!
10. False alarm air raid / missile crisis
11. Announce national music contest judged by Our Leader.

I found this bit extremely funny, perhaps because it seemed close to the loony reality of our 45th American President’s administration.

When Blake’s dictatorial boss screeches “Unacceptable!” when he calls her to take a day off for a close friend’s funeral, I cringed, perhaps because I’ve had bosses like that myself.

In any case, I would have been delighted if author Adam Bender had stuck with this type of silliness. I wasn’t expecting a deep character study here, just lots of giggles.

Alas, he ended on a more serious note. So the story’s denouement was ok, but not wonderful.

Still, overall this was great fun.

So ratings:

Overall audio narration: 4
Audio narrator reading the text without errors: 3
Humor: 5
Story: 3
Overall rating: 4

A dystopian satire that hits a bit too close to reality for my comfort. This story was a trip; equal bits funny and alarming, this was a quick listen (or read) that I enjoyed the whole way through. Following PR whiz Blake Hamner (the n is silent), we watch as he attempts to balance his job as a Crisis Communications Manager for Our Leader and his relationship with his news anchor wife, two aspects of his life that are very much at odds. This is a fun read for anyone who likes their escapism with a heavy dose of political commentary.

Thanks to NetGalley and Adam Bender for the opportunity to listen to this book.

I was attracted to this book because I work in PR and I (sometimes) like a satirical read. Utopia PR is a bit bonkers. It's also very clever and well executed, the characters are a bit odd and seems to be based on real-life people.

Blake Hamner is a crisis communications manager for the government. His job is to try to keep ‘The Leader’ out of trouble and when unsuccessful in that effort he must put a positive spin on things – sound familiar? The job becomes too much for crack after one of the presidents’ cyber dogs almost tears him apart. The attack off a chain of events in Blakes life, from marriage trouble to a colleague trying to get him fired.

Utopia PR is a dystopian and very satirical novel. It takes a funny yet realistic at relationships, and how work can take over our lives

I did not finish this one. I couldn't care about the characters or the plot. I made it over an hour in but couldn't finish.

This was a timely, relevant book that also had a great level of humor and sarcasm.

As far as the storyline and characters, I work in communications/marketing so that topic is typically pretty interesting to me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, I listened to the audio version (in exchange for an honest review) and I enjoyed it overall! The characters weren't super deep and there really weren't any standouts to be personally so this is one that I actually preferred as an audio option. It was easy to multi-task while listening to this, which is something I tend to measure audio by (this can be good or bad but I appreciated it in this case).

The narrator was fitting and had a good voice and the appropriate tones. I tend to listen to audio at 1.5x speed so my opinions of these details might be a little slanted but overall it worked well!

This was the first book I experienced by this author and I will definitely need to look into others!