*Full review to be added closer to publication date in December!*

Yours for the Taking is a stunning new sci-fi novel that kept me fully engaged throughout the entire story. I genuinely enjoyed Gabrielle Korn's writing and ability to craft such a unique, exciting, and thought-provoking story. There's a lot to explore with this book and I have a feeling it's going to be a hit for a lot of people. If you're looking for a new sci-fi to sink your teeth into this year, this is one you'll want to keep on your radar.

The future is female!

Dystopian books are my jam. Give me an end-of-the-world(-as-we-know-it) book, and I'm there. Fill it with an LGBTQIA+ cast? Cherry on top. This not-too-distantly futuristic sci-fi is reminiscent of Elysium or Divergent, with a hint of Handmaid's Tale, if you throw in The Truman Show.

By the 2050s, the earth has been neglected and damaged beyond repair. Unpredictable weather patterns batter the landscape, melting ice caps flood the coasts, and illness is rampant. To billionaire philanthropist Jacqueline Millender, the cause is obvious: men. The patriarchy has been in control for all history, and look where it's gotten us. So when the United World Government asked for her assistance with their new projects (six massive self-contained cities encased in metal and glass around the world), she used the opportunity to create a man-free New York. But in striving to save society from the patriarchy, is she creating an equally toxic environment?

A quote from an ending chapter puts it beautifully: "Equality is only scary if you have to give up power to attain it."

[This remainder of this review contains spoilers]

I love the premise of this, absolutely love the idea of making a self-sustaining city for future generations. I also love the dynamic of Inside-vs-Outside, the Chosen against the Left Behind. I think this story had a LOT of potential, especially spanning 20+ years. The first quarter of the book was intriguing; interesting characters, detailed descriptions of the world, relationships we could believe and become attached to. By the time Ava, one of the four main narratives, moved Inside, her characterization began to change. Sure, she was understandably depressed and poorly adapting to a world she hadn't expected. Adding to that is the obvious fact that some kind of mood-altering chemicals are being fed through the air systems, I wasn't too surprised or disappointed in this change. I just waited it out. Unfortunately, the switch back never came, and Ava stayed one-dimensional until the end.

Many parts of this book made me want to shake my phone and shout, "Show me! Don't tell!" Too many times we're things written out plainly, leaving nothing for the reader to parse together. I don't want to read, "She opened the email and what she read made her gasp," but would rather see what the email said, and gasp myself. The relationships felt just as flat, with sentences like, "she had friends; smart, interesting, funny friends," yet no characters to fit this "friend" category. Even the doctor, a strong, smart woman named Olympia, had nothing in her life besides heading the medical department: no friends, no relationships, no hobbies, for twenty years.

That brings me to another grievance: the characters spent twenty years inside a self-contained ecosystem, and yet we barely learn how it works. I'd love to have read about the division of labor, the lives of other residents, the how-to for different areas. Were the women trained in various trades, or were some selected based on their education and experience? What happened when things broke? Were there animals? Were there animals left outside? And then the same questions for the space station, where the billionaires went. Did the support staff just serve for 20 years without pause? Not to mention the rest of the world, where there were survivors. What did they eat? What was the landscape like? Outside of one small bartering community in the woods, we know nothing of the other survivors.

I really wanted to like this book. I'm giving it two stars because it's such an imaginative plot, and the world was well thought-out, just not well articulated. I had to force myself to finish it. I would be willing to read a revised version of it, but would likely not recommend it to a friend or re-read it as-is.

I feel like I read a different book than everyone else did. It was…fine. It's not a long book, but it often felt interminable. It has its moments (I was tickled by the portrayal of Gen Z as middle-aged parents lamenting "Aren't kids interested in socialism anymore?"), but on the whole I was underwhelmed.

This book has elements reminiscent of The Giver by Lois Lowry, Greenwood by Michael Christie, and the movie Snowpiercer, but all of them did it better. I think maybe cli-fi is just hard to do well without it feeling hokey or on the nose? In some ways, the imagined future in this book feels so plausible that it’s not even that interesting, it doesn’t feel that creative; it’s just like, yup, that’s probably what would happen.

The book is obviously interested in gender, but it doesn’t have particularly interesting things to say about gender. The discussion of gender is basically just Twitter discourse from 2018. This would be disappointing even if the book were set in 2018; it’s even more disappointing given that the book is set in the 2050s and later. If it has never occurred to you to think about how trans men factor into discussions of gendered oppression, then you may find some interesting ideas here. Everyone else will be like “sigh, this again? We just say ‘marginalized genders’ now.” The characters have essentially the same conversation that I remember people having on LiveJournal in 2010. If you're looking for a Torrey Peters-level discussion of gender, this book isn't even close.

The characters mostly feel under-developed. There are like six different POV characters, which means we don't spend enough time with any one character for me to really get to know them that well.

The prose and dialogue are sometimes stilted. At one point a character learns that something terrible has happened to her loved one, and she says, "What? No. That's awful. She must be so scared." (I heard this in the voice of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka saying "Stop, don't, come back" in a bored perfunctory tone.)

The last 10-15% feels rushed and facile. There's a whistleblower plotline, and I usually like stories about whistleblowers, but this one didn't feel satisfying. Everything happens too quickly and easily to be believable. It even feels kind of insulting to real-life whistleblowers, who are often fired, sued, harassed, etc. for speaking out.

I'm trying to think what kind of reader might like this book, and I guess it could be good for book clubs. It brings up obvious discussion questions like "What do you think an all-female society would be like?" or "What would you do if you were accepted to Inside but your loved ones weren't?"

This book is about consent. The effectual billionaire owner of this quasi utopian, planned society has lied from the start, got people there through fraud, keeps them wanting to be there through non-consensual drugging. The society was supposed to be egalitarian, diverse, and classless - but the initial people were all upper middle class women in their 20s-30s - and far fewer of them than advertised. Several pages were put into defining what is a man, woman, and who, precisely, would be permitted in this community. There are cliques, and only people in the same (assigned) job socialize with each other (openly), and there are groups who are not allowed to interact other than professionally.

Families are broken apart, heartlessly. Some find each other, through kismet.

A dictatorship is a dictatorship. A prison is still a prison even if it's very very comfortable. Lack of choice, even if it's in someone's idea of your best interest is not freedom. Cracks in the absolute control form, and attempts to maintain control appear.

There are realistic, relatable, GLBTIQ+ characters. I can relate to everyone there - even the "evil billionaire", who appears to want "the best" for the future - but ruthless in how she'll go about attaining it.

I would give this 6 stars if I could!

I struggled with this book, though I do still think it'll find its best readers who will really appreciate and enjoy it. This book feels like a beach ride that's sci fi and queer and satirical, and that's not a bad thing, but it didn't hit just right for me; I found the prose lacking on the line level, and the character-building uneven. I appreciated the humor, and the conceit, and of course, having queer characters front and center was a delight, but overall I was expecting something more literary. I also continue to feel stuck on a white writer writing from the perspective of a Black woman; on the one hand, with so many POVs, I understand the impulse to have a more diverse cast, but something about the delivery just felt uneasy to me, perhaps especially because it does interrogate race and politics for a Black woman's experience but written by a white person... I'm not a woc, so it's not my place ultimately to decide this or even have an opinion on it, but it's a discomfort that stayed with me throughout the book.

I wanted to love this book, and I didn’t. So let’s talk about that. Yours for the Taking is a feminist climate apocalypse dystopia that follows a number of women over 22+ years as they try to figure themselves out in a new and changing society. My biggest issue with this book is that despite the author saying it was a feminist book, despite the view points of the characters in the book suggesting it was a feminist book, it did not feel like a feminist book. But instead a white liberal feminist trying to be an ally, but showing herself not to be.

Featuring:
☆ A lot of queer women stuck in an enclosed dome together
☆ a girlboss gatekeep gaslight CEO trying to lead the feminist revolution
☆ a strong pro-environmentalism fuck capitalism thesis
☆ and a dystopia that will leave you on edge throughout the book.

So here’s the thing, every time any character mentions the idea of cis or trans women or gender inequality based on race, it felt like the author was spitting out the viewpoints that she thought she should have, but didn’t truly hold. Throughout the book we follow a number of diverse POVs over the course of the book, featuring many different type of women, however the POV the author really felt most comfortable in, was that of the cis white lesbian. Which makes sense for who the author is. In the end the content of what she was saying made her feel like an ally while the syntax and context they were used didn’t. It more often than not felt like she was adding in these things simply because she realised she had to. Most notably the book almost seems to come to this conclusion that a single person provided all the resources they need, could raise two children better than a collective. Which is a <i>weird</i> conclusion. In the end because of this gap between what the author was saying and what she believed, as well as her clear preference for Ava’s narrative, the writing overall felt lumpy and uneven.

This isn’t to say Korn isn’t a good writer either, she certainly is. Her pacing throughout the book is fantastic, and her style avoids the frills, but remains nevertheless engaging. The book extends far beyond the scope of what you would think given the description, but in all honesty it was great to read that far into the future and follow these women and see how things change over time. And while the POV’s of Shelby and Olympia lagged, when writing Ava, who because of how much better her POV was written, and how much other people talked about her, felt often times like the MC, it’s really fun to read. Ava is clearly trying to figure things out in a situation she doesn’t truly want to be in. She’s relatable and you can’t help but feel for her as she tries to find meaning in her life which, to her, has been stripped of meaning. Furthermore, the anti-capitalist pro-environment messaging works fantastically, with the final conclusion of the book being the same people who will try to save us, will be the people who caused it in the first place.

However this same core messaging is undercut by the fact that the author doesn’t give us this conclusion until about the final 1/3 of the book. Spoiler for what occurs: <spoiler>Specifically, we don’t find out that JM Inc made their money by fracking.</spoiler> And in all honesty these conclusions should’ve been made earlier in the book. Without it the setting of the book felt listless. About 90% of the book could’ve been set in literally any type of apocalypse and nothing would’ve had to change. Which somewhat further hammers down the issue of the books messaging not matching with its presentation. Why set it during a climate apocalypse? The book barely justifies it, and I really wish it had.

In the end Yours for the Taking was a book I was expecting to be a lot more meaningful and in depth than it was. It was full of plotholes, and more often than not felt like the author was paying lipservice to things she herself doesn’t believe. I suspect this book will play better with a white queer liberal audience, but I am not that audience.

Final Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ (5/10)

I had really high hopes for this one. Though it missed the mark a bit for me, it wouldn't deter me from recommending it to others. A lot is tackled here in what I guess is described best as Cli-Fi. While I did find it very interesting, the pacing seemed off to me which is where I struggled to maintain interest. Perhaps there was too much ? Maybe a smaller set of characters would have helped? Regardless, I appreciated the author's intent and it was a unique take on a dystopian future.

I went into this one thinking it would be an easy four or five star read for me, but it fell a bit flat and read more YA. The story itself was wild and intriguing but the character development, pace and story structure just wasn’t there and most scenes was rushed or repetitive. With more fleshed out characters and scenes, I think this would have been an easy five stars.

Ebook ARC provided through NetGalley
Rating: 2.5 stars

I didn't loooove this book. The premise was engaging, with the opportunity for only certain people to enter The Inside Project, a "series of weather-safe, city-sized structures" meant to protect inhabitants from environmental and humanitarian disaster, and some of the FMCs were engaging. there was a lot of queer and BIPOC representation, which I enjoyed, but often the plot dragged, and the many points of view that the story follows became confusing and convoluted. I had a hard time actually finishing this book because I didn't really care about most of the main characters.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for giving me an ARC of this book - I love that I had the chance to read it!

Gabrielle Korn really brings up some interesting themes with feminism and gender structure here, and I am all for books that bring these to the forefront.

I feel like Jacqueline and Olympia were both really well-developed characters. Ava, Brooke, and July could be developed a bit more in my opinion.

I also think a little more showing and not telling with characters would benefit the story.

A science editor would be fantastic prior to final publication. There are a a few medical inaccuracies here.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. It think it'll lead to some great discourse upon publication. I will be excited to see what the final published copy of this looks like!

I really wanted to love this!!! I got 78% in and had to stop.
I love love love the premise of this story. I enjoy the characters. I feel like there is not a lot of action happening to move the story along. It keeps climbing to a climax that isn’t there. This is spanning a 22 year period at this point and there is no conflict. I don’t believe in 1 star reviewing. The idea is there, I just need *more*. Hopefully one day I can pick it back up and get to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Yours for the Taking.

I don't read a lot of science fiction, but when I do, it's because the premise hooked me.

That's how I felt about Yours for the Taking, great premise, interesting characters, and I wanted to know more.

But it was not to be, namely for a number of reasons:

This was chock full of gender politics, dialogue about gender politics and social inequality between the characters just droning on and on.

I felt the author had her own political agenda, using the book as her personal soapbox. And I don't like being preached to or at.

There isn't much of a story, just a group of women talking about how difficult life is for women of color and nonconforming sexual orientation.

I read for escape, for enjoyment and pleasure, not to be reminded of the social and political hellscape I'm living in.

The time jumps also made for a unfun reading experience; some things happen off-camera which I want to know more about, and the duller aspects of life are described in more detail. Why?

I couldn't understand why the author chose this format structure.

Also, I didn't like or care about any of the characters.

It seems, regardless of whether you live in a dystopian or utopian society, people remain the same; greedy, selfish, vain, striving for power at the expense of the powerless and marginalized.

DNFed it. I was looking forward to read this book but it just didn't feel interesting enough to continue. Its not bad or boring but its not my cup of team i guess.

Wow, this was one of the most engaging, thought-provoking, and relevant books I’ve read in a long time. If you like dystopian fiction novels, especially with queer representation, you need to read this one. Yours for the Taking follows the stories of three young queer women in the not-so-distant future when the global climate change crisis is so severe that around the world, selective, climate-resistant communities known as “The Inside” are created. The Inside that is built where Manhattan used to be is run by an elitist power-hungry billionaire feminist who has extreme ideas on how to select and curate the “perfect” community in the Inside - starting not accepting any men.

I found myself hooked in this story. It moved very fast, although I felt connected to all of the characters. This novel covers a very wide range of topics, including but not limited to toxic (and non-toxic) feminism, capitalism, transphobia, gender norms, eugenics, queer belonging and family, consent, and motherhood.

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s press, and Gabrielle Korn for allowing me to read this ARC - do yourself a favor and read this one.

BIG thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Publishing Group for letting me get my hands on this book early!

Yours For The Taking is a story of feminism, gender structures, climate change, family, and queerness. It challenges readers to think about what equality truly is The characters hooked me and I fell in love with almost all of them (except you, Jacqueline…).

This is a book that will hook you FAST and force you to just keep reading one more chapter. My advice? Pre-order it. Read it. Get your hands on it. You won’t regret it!

Also, a big shoutout to the queer representation in this book. So well done.

Reading this book just as smoke was pouring in from Canadian wildfires blocking out the sun for days and causing air quality warnings couldn’t have been more timely. It gave an eerie sense of foreboding to the story while reading. The book is very thought provoking and I enjoyed the discussions on gender, sex and reproduction and who should be allowed to live on “The Inside”. I thought this was a really interesting take on dystopian lit from a feminist perspective and enjoyed reading this book a lot. I would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys this genre and think it would be a great book for book groups as well. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

A dystopian novel set in NYC, the year is 2050, and global warming has trashed everything. People must now either be accepted to live in new enclosed and protected city-like structures (called Insides), become wanderers (mostly the poor, going north to escape the heat), or go to space (the rich). At the novel's center is a powerful business woman, Jacqueline Millender, who controls the NYC-based Inside.

The reader is lulled into thinking this is a lovely female-run, new-age world, where women can finally have power, equality, everything they've ever wanted. A nirvana. Author Gabrielle Korn does an artful job of imagining this world for us and easily placing the reader in what 2050 (and subsequent decades) might look like. I actually did the math to see how old my kids would be in 2050 and got a little nervous.

In "Inside" we see social issues debated, like worker class, motherhood/choice, basic freedom of choice, sexuality, sexual identify and more.

But of course, it is a tale as old as history: power corrupts. No matter the gender of those running the show. It is a compelling tale to see how the plot develops and to hope for the satisfying ending we wish for. Korn's narrative style is very simple, with short declarative sentences that almost feel a bit robotic at times. How much of that is stylistic for the dystopian reality, or her true style, I don't know.

4-stars for interesting plot and female-forward fiction. I would recommend this book for a book club discussion and even readers who are not big fans of the dystopian genre. Pub date 12/5/23. 336 pages.

Thank you, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley, for providing an eARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

#netgalley @netgalley

Brilliant, and thought-provoking piece of feminist speculative fiction. Definitely a story that will stick with me for years to come.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the early review copy. This is a book that I'm going to need all the special and signed editions for my shelves.

This is a book that I will be thinking about for a long time to come, the idea was so out of this world and yet so believable at the same time, I can see how every single character made the decision that they do and how they justified it to themselves and others. I thought the characters were really well written and fleshed out, I enjoyed this novel a lot and look forward to reading more by Gabrielle.

i went into this book excited based on the description, but it really fell flat for me. i was intrigued by the concept of a post-apocalyptic, near future, queer sci-fi that explores gender roles and identity politics taken to their extreme. but i was hoping that this would lead to a fulfilling gateway to some kind of post-catastrophe method of organizing, and it didn't really explore that at all except a brief mention at the end. not that endings need to fulfil my own desires, but the lead up to it never really engaged me either, so by the end it felt like i was just trying to get the book over with.

i think this book has a lot of good ideas in it, but the character development could have used a *lot* more work, and there were parts of the story that never felt believable. the plot jumped sporadically from POVs and timelines, moving pretty slow in some uninteresting parts and then too fast in others. the dialog also felt dull and rough, and not natural sounding at all. i never emotionally connected to any of the characters or felt like i could imagine what anything looked like, so it just felt kind of cartoonish. the whole book felt like an outline of a story written on a napkin more than the story itself.

thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an early copy of the book in return for an honest review.