Overall, the Free People's Village was an engrossing read that made me feel hope, and memories of despair at certain parts. Included in Free People's were some great works to read if you wanted to educate yourself and that inclusion felt natural to the story. Also, given that the point of view is of a cis white woman, there was discomfort all over the place!

There were both big and little stakes throughout the story, and it felt like a nice blend of character development, plot continuity, and realism. This story felt grounded in reality, even though it did pose the question of what if Al Gore won the 2000 election.

There were some points that were lagging, but that felt more like personal preference over any issue with the pacing.

Thank you to Netgalley and Levine Querido for an ecopy of this ARC

Visceral and upsetting, The Free People’s Village is an alternate history imagining of the 2020 protest wave, setting Seattle’s Autonomous Zone in Austin during America’s War on Climate Change, a political push that has a striking similarity to the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.

Maddie, an ex-Catholic 22-year-old divorcée, finds her way to The Lab, an “arts space” in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Austin, where she carves herself a precarious space among the predominantly queer, trans, PoC musicians that play there. When she finds out that the government is going to bulldoze the place to put up a highway and the landlord, who she is reluctantly dating, has done nothing about it, she throws herself into a political struggle for the future of the city.

The Free People’s Village is a book that deals heavily with white savior complexes and white guilt, in particular the experience of being a white queer woman in a Black neighborhood. While Maddie was frequently unlikable and her perspective uncomfortable to inhabit, she is a familiar and very real character, and her struggles with belonging, privilege, and politics are intimate and believable.

Of all of the characters we meet at The Free People’s Village, Maddie is one of the least qualified to give an account of what happened, and one of the least interesting people involved in the story, but I think it works in this particular case. By the time Maddie is able to tell this story, she knows her voice is the wrong one for the job— but also that she’s one of the only people with both the knowledge and the position to be able to do it at all.

I felt that The Free People’s Village was a little overly didactic at times, and the both-sides-ism of the setup was extremely depressing, and I would hesitate to recommend it— not because it isn’t excellent, (it is) but because it’s such an unpleasant experience for so much of the narrative. You know the entire time how it’s going to end, and it doesn’t do a damn thing to soften the blow. But if you’re up for it? It’s absolutely worth the struggle.

4.5 stars, I cried, it made me gut-churningly anxious, hated the main character, excellent novel

Thanks to Levine Querido and NetGalley for the eARC, provided in exchange for an honest review

Eat-the-rice climate fiction, I'm here for it. I also had the joy of picking up a short story zine from this author, which primed me to be delighted for this work. The main character was relatable and I loved to see the Houston rep and will be recommending this book to friends based on that as well. I feel very grateful to have received an advance copy!

This is the story of a movement, and the place that is at the center of it — how the warehouse turned punk-rock party venue “The Lab'' becomes “The Free People’s Village”, an occupation and HQ for the movement trying to save the neighborhood from destruction to make space for a new superhighway.

WHAT WORKED:
- The world building of this alternate timeline is really well done. It is different enough while still being plausible, and plausible without being predictable.
- Captures the frustration of large, decentralized political movements, but also shows that it is possible for people with different ideas to cooperate towards a common goal.
- There are a lot of important conversations about fairness and social justice and the rights of poorer communities being trampled to make life more convenient for the more affluent. That alone makes this book worth a read, in my opinion.
- It was pretty cool to read a full-length book with a prominent character who uses neopronouns (Red uses xe/xim/xir). When I started reading I thought this might be jarring, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
- Gestas was my favorite out of the more prominent characters. I do love a smart character who runs circles around everybody else with his sharp analyses. Plus he wears skirts and glittery stuff. And has good book recommendations. Would love to be friends with him in real life.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER:
- The book is VERY didactic, like the story was created explicitly to be a vehicle to carry these political discussions. I usually really like books that do social commentary, but this one felt heavy handed at times, which took me out of the flow of the story.
- The characters, although beautifully diverse as a group, felt pretty flat as individuals. Most of them are very one-dimensional. Red is the rebel who breaks stuff. Fish is the white guy who is desperate to “be cool”. The main character Maddie is kind of a blank canvas. She was kind of unlikable (this might have been deliberate, as she represents white saviorism and white guilt), and I had a hard time connecting with her. The synopsis makes it sound like all she cares about is her band, but I got the impression that the only reason she cares about the band is because Red is in it. The music making gets kind of dropped and forgotten at a certain point, and while some characters say they miss the jams, it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference in their lives.

YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS IF:
- You like stories where characters come together to try to “stick it to the man”;
- You like alternative timeline stories;
- You are in the beginning of your journey of social justice awareness and enjoy concepts being explained to you.

***Thank you NetGalley and publisher Levine Querido for providing an advanced reader copy of this book***

The Free People’s Village is a look at if Al Gore has won the election and waged a war on climate change rather then a war on drugs. A lot of things are different, but greed and corruption stay the same. The rich get everything while everyone else barely get scraps. Wow I was not expecting this to be such an emotional read in the way that it was, I felt every emotion while reading this. Sim Kern is an amazing writer that seamlessly integrates world building into their writing so this didn’t feel info dump heavy, but you also knew what was going on in this parallel universe. I really highly recommend this one!

*thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

What if Gore won the election in 2000? What if for the past three decades we had only Democrat presidents? The USA would be a liberal utopia right? Well, maybe. For some people it would seem that way. People who are from the neighborhoods where they can afford to pay to offset their carbon footprints. Where they aren't seen as inefficient for not being able to afford this year's brand new model of whatever new green appliance is out so they can get the credit for recycling the old one. People from wealthy white neighborhoods. Because the cycles systemic racism are never addressed. Because profit over people has always been the end game.

When a hyperway expansion threatens a historically Black neighborhood Save the Eigth begins an occupation protest. We follow Maddie, a white, naive, not-exactly-local who finds herself in the middle of the occupation.

The Free People's Village by Sim Kern is one of my favorite reads this year. It is wonderfully written and paced in a way that I could not put it down. I was up until 1 am reading because I needed to know the outcome. And when this book comes out in September I will be recommending it to all my self described liberal and leftist friends.

I think Kern perfectly highlighted the bubble of White Liberalism. Move forward at any cost to those left behind because the systemic issues are not being addressed. And as shown in the book, the left doesn't have all the answers. But the problems are acknowledged, solutions are just varied.

The discomfort Maddie felt as she was learning and unlearning biases she had gave me a visceral reaction. Because I've been there, and I am still there on many things. The debates between friends sound so similar to ones I've had and heard. The arguments between opposing sides were the same. I loved everything about The Free People's Village because even as a speculative novel, it was so real.

Content Warnings for this book that I distinctly remember (Please forgive me for any that I have forgotten to mention here!): Police brutality, religion, manipulation/gaslighting, sexual assault/rape, violence, drug abuse, and suicide.

TL;DR: This book is fantastic, y’all. I found it while participating in the #TransRightsReadathon in March, but I didn’t start it until May. The setting is surreal, incredibly realistic, and almost dystopian. The story and writing are a delight. The characters are fantastic with some quirks that might annoy some and be too preachy and academic. But, it’s all compelling and worth every minute of your time. Definitely read it if you want a little queer romance with your eat-the-rich revolution.

"I know you want to hear about the Free People’s Village and that literal, fateful-fucking-step at the reflecting pool, but to explain why I did what I did, I have to start the story months earlier, before the tents and tear gas and stirrings of revolution, with the night of the last great party at the Lab—the night Red destroyed the Fun Machine."

Honestly, from these opening lines, I was hooked from the moment I started reading and I knew this book was going to be a real treat and at least four stars for me. Little did I know how timely this book was going to be for me and how it was going to hit me in the feels, unlike any book I have read recently.

I found The Free People’s Village by signing up to read Sim Kern’s #TransRightsReadathon challenge back in March. I wouldn’t normally go for a book like this, to be honest, because it’s out of my usual realm of tastes. I prefer a romance or a fantasy novel, but something about the premise of this caught my eye. Especially with all of the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQIA+ laws coming out. I added it to my TBR then to read as a part of the challenge as a way to step out of my comfort zone, but I didn’t get around to reading it until May and I didn’t finish it until tonight. But, it came at the perfect time.

The Free People’s Village follows Maddie Ryan (she/her), an English schoolteacher, who just wants to play bass with her friends in their queer punk band and fall deeper in love with the band’s lead guitarist, Red (xe/xir/xim). The story takes place in an alternate timeline where the Democrats have held power over the government since the Clinton era because the 2000 election went for Al Gore instead of George Bush. Thus, the world as we know it has been changed to prioritize carbon-cutting initiatives and reverse climate change as much as possible. However, this world hugely favors only the wealthy, white, cisgender elite with little care for minorities and punishments for those who choose to step out of line. The ramifications of this society do not impact Maddie until the warehouse-turned-venue called the Lab is threatened to be torn down to build a new electromagnetic hyperway out to the wealthy, white suburbs. To save her and her friends’ home, she joins Save the Eighth, a Black-led movement striving to save the neighborhood around the Lab. Although her reasons to join the movement at first are selfish and individualistic (those being to keep the band together and get as close to Red as possible), the movement soon forces Maddie to question her motives and herself. Will she continue being complacent and ignorant in her roles as a gentrifier-by-proxy at the predominantly white-owned Lab in the Black Eighth Ward and as a white teacher teaching white literary canon in a predominantly Black school? The Save the Eighth movement becomes an occupation at the Lab and the birthplace of an anti-capitalist and anti-many-things revolution known as The Free People’s Village. When the police and the state respond to the peaceful protest with violence, the movement spreads across the nation and the globe. However, it also becomes a growing victim of infighting, police brutality, attacks from the state and corporate media, and rising eco-fascism. As Maddie falls deeper and deeper in love with Red and dreams of building a future with xim, her found family becomes more and more threatened by the state and she must decide what she’s willing to lose to be free.

I have SO many thoughts about this book. I barely know where to begin.

The setting of this book was so realistic in its portrayal of this alternate timeline that it was almost a dystopia. That is far from a bad thing! I could definitely see there being a parallel universe where everything that took place in this book happens from Democrats having control for so long to a War on Climate Change turning into eco-fascism for minorities to the state using police as a weapon to subdue any opposition. It is all just a perfect illustration of what this world would look like. The chilling part for me is that it is all taken from our actual reality. The eco-racism depicted in this book is just a ramped up version of the eco-racism that is so present today. The police violence we see in this book happens to protests all the time as do the smear campaigns we see in corporate media of them (Black Lives Matter being called thugs and looters, anyone? Or, the curfew being set on them when they were just peacefully protesting? Not to mention the tear gas and rubber bullets?). The author truly explored every detail of what a world like this would be like. You can tell research and heart was put in this book, and it makes for such a down-to-earth story. Minor spoiler coming: There is this one scene where Maddie, Gestas, Red, some of their other friends, and a Campaign Outreach Volunteer are talking, and Gestas mentions that there are prophets on the internet who look at key points in history and guesses how things would be different. He mentions our actual timeline where Bush won the election and 9/11 and the War on Terror happened and Climate Change was left to run rampant. That scene sent goosebumps down my spine. Yes, this is our lived reality, but the characters here are talking about it the same way we talk about the Mandala Effect. There’s something surreal about that to me, and I think that strange feeling is one of the many things I will never forget about this book and why I will always remember it. It’s just a fantastic scene overall and really showcases how well Sim Kern wrote the setting of this novel.

The story and writing of The Free People’s Village was sooooooooooooooooo good! Like I said, from the moment I started reading this book, I was obsessed with the writing. It felt like just listening to someone tell a story or reading a diary. It was a captivating written oral story of sorts. I just loved it. The writing was just delightful and true. It was such a good conversation, and I loved it. Storywise, I also loved it. It was a fantastic revolution story. It displays the reality of a movement/occupation. I know I have said it before, but this book is just so real. It toes the line almost into nonfiction with how real it is. For a book of this nature/genre, if it feels like it could be a world we live in, then it has exceeded the expectations and excelled at its job. It has killed it, and this book did that.

The characters are kind of where things get interesting. In general, I loved the characters and their stories. All of the side characters like Vida, Lorenzo, etc. were just a pleasure to read. They were funny when they needed to be and added to the story in their own ways. For me, my favorite character was Red. Xe was so fun and unpredictable. Xir’s story was the most compelling to me, mostly likely because xir’s story is close to my partner’s in a lot of ways. But, my partner’s life is what would happen if Red’s life had gone a different way. It hit me in my feelings, and it was amazing. If I have any critiques of this book, they would be about Maddie and Gestas as characters. Gestas is a Black trans-guy who is under a state-run house arrest. He is very vocal about his anarchist, anti-capitalist, and anti-establishment. There are times where this is fantastic for exposition and background, but there are times where this can be kind of… preachy. It can be too much and slow down the story. I think that is mainly because of my own experiences and the knowledge from that, so this may not be something that impacts all readers. But, it is something to keep in mind while reading. Maddie is probably my biggest source for compliant if I had to point one out. The first section of the novel she was a great narrator. Towards the end of the book, she kind of became a bit of a self-made martyr and repetitive. She took on so much shame and guilt from her and others’ behaviors. It was the point of the story and a crucial part of it, but at points, it would take me out of the story or drag the story because she would harp on it a bit too much. Still, Maddie was an interesting perspective for the story. She is both in the foreground and in the background of the movement/occupation. It’s perfect because her role is how most of us would be as activists in a movement. We would be participants but not leaders by any means. It’s great for storytelling and a fantastic device for this kind of story.

I think what made this story extra meaningful for me is because I have been in a similar place lately as Maddie at the end of the novel. Without spoiling, she is going through it at the end and she attributes it to not grieving when she should have. I FELT that to my bones. I don’t think I have grieved losing states of my life, and I think that has really hit me lately. It’s hard to move on when you haven’t reckoned with who you used to be and who you lost by changing. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s something beautifully illustrated in this book and a reason why this book will stick with me for a long time.

I highly recommend this book to any who want some light romance with their desire to eat the rich. It’s just a great read!

Sim Kern's writing on the climate crisis is once again set in a fictional Texas, this time in a world where Gore became president and instituted a war on climate change. Now, a supposedly green initiative threatens Houston's historic--and poor--Eighth Ward, and a bevy of characters are ready to fight to stop it. Except that they aren't characters. Instead of developing characters, the characters here are all ideas. Protagonist Maddie, who is such a flat, nothing character that it makes me want to yell, stands for and represents White guilt. Marxism and intellectual thought is embodied in Gestas, who is serving an in-home prison sentence for fraud. Red, Maddie's lover, represents fear and self-interest, as does her ex, who is also White business/money/gentrification. the characters, such as they are, are wonderfully diverse in gender and race and other kinds of identity, and could have been so much more. Kern illustrates the difference between legal protest and sabotage, between action and revolution in ways that will make some readers think. Overall, though, the lack of real characters and a strong helping of pedantic exposition makes the book drag and ultimately lose its point of action.

The Free People’s Village - Sim Kern
4/5 ⭐️
I requested this arc on @netgalley after Sim (@sim_bookstagrams_badly) spread news about the Trans Rights Readathon and @LevineQuerido kindly did accept my request.
In “The Free People’s Village” we follow our main character Maddie who takes us with them to a new chapter of their life. Their backstory involves a lot of evangelicalism and their new life offers an anarchist commune, protests, love, booze & fighting an unfair political system. Through her eyes we see how people change, how education is key to learning a new perspective and how every decision matters.
In the novel Al-Gore won the 2020 election and launches the US into a “War on climate” and everyone has to pay carbon taxes on every purchase they make. Kern links climate fiction to revolution to mental health which is a unique mix to have a novel focus on.

Reading this novel was a slow start but after getting to know the different and diverse cast of characters, I enjoyed getting lost in our mc’s head. The novel features trans people of all kinds, people of color, landlords (the worst) & punk band musicians.
Definitely would recommend this book if you’re into political theory and activism & crave to learn new things while reading a novel 💭

The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern is released September 12th, 2023 at Levine Querido ✨

This is my honest review & my own opinion.

After reading Depart, Depart I knew I needed to read more from Kern. This was a great book that will stay with me for a long time. It kept me turning pages and I was fully invested.

This book was exactly what I needed right now. I've been getting disheartened by all the threatening legislation lately, and wondering if I should continue struggling here in my state or move somewhere a little more friendly. Well, this book will - not exactly inspire you, but - make you feel like the struggle is worth it. Devastating but frightfully realistic, Sim Kern has mastered the "Which timeline is the darkest timeline" trope. You'll cry, you'll get mad, you'll giggle, you'll close the book and contemplate your priorities. Seriously. I hope everyone who was involved in the Trans Rights Readathon will pick up this book, because Sim Kern has quickly become one of my favorite authors. This is not an easy read or a light read. But it is a five-star read.

I wish I had read this book when I was in middle school. I wish I had read it in high school, college, as a young adult. I'm glad that I've read it now.

This book will sit with me for a long time, and I recommend it to anyone who yearns for a better world, those who aren't afraid of having their beliefs challenged, and to folks who don't know about how much work actually needs to be done to change society for the better.

Most of all, I would recommend this book to people who are perfectly comfortable in their world today.

Heck, I think everyone should pick up this book. I hope it will end up on school reading lists.

The Free People's Village is very well written, with a great balance of character development, personal stories, and big stakes in the plot. I tore through it quickly, eager to know what happens next. With all of my bookmarks, I know that I'll be rereading it again soon.

This was a fantastic and compelling page turner! I was not sure what to expect and went in blind, and I was blown away but everything this story had to offer.
It was inspiring, interesting and educational - forcing you to challenge your worldview, for ing you to look inside yourself and see what you would do to make a change to existing systems of oppression.
I enjoyed the characters and their incredible diversity and learning from them. I enjoyed the relationships, both romantic and platonic and I truly enjoyed this one in general.

Our main character, Maddie, is white woman who spends most of her time in a mainly black neighborhood in (an alternate timeline) Houston called the Eighth Ward, working as a high school teacher during the day and spending her evenings at an old warehouse turned punk space called The Lab. Disillusioned with her teaching job, she has joined a queer punk band, Bunny Bloodlust.

In this timeline, Al Gore won the election and declared a War on Climate Change. He made a ton of green changes, including things like charging carbon taxes for basically anything requiring energy. Sweeping changes are made across the US, including the use of maglev trains.

When Maddie finds out that the neighborhood the Lab is in, she joins a Black-led movement to save the Eighth Ward.

This book could have positioned Maddie as a white savior but it doesn’t. Instead, Kern chose to turn the story onto the unlearning and relearning of old ideas one must do if they’re going to be a true ally.

Throughout the book, Maddie makes some really bad decisions and repeats some old cycles and I just wanted to scream, “What ARE you doing?!” But Maddie is 24 years old and who among us had it all figured out at that age?

The book is full of diverse well-rounded characters and their interactions ring true. This book would be especially good for the “beginning” white or queer ally who is looking to learn more about queer culture or how to be a decent white ally.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, Levine Quierdo, and the author, Sim Kern, for the opportunity to read this advance copy.

I think this book is perfect for people that are new to activism, but would like to start somewhere.

The main character, Maddie, is a white woman, working and spending most of her time in the so called Eight Ward, a mainly Black neighborhood, in a different Houston. In this alternative timeline in fact the United States have declared war on Climate Change (rather than terrorism), often sacrificing entire parts of their cities in its name.

I really liked different things about this book:
-the order in which the events were told: going back and forth between different months kept me glued to the pages, I wanted to understand what was happening to Maddie, to the people she cared about, to the neighborhood
-the idea of a very recent alternative timeline: a war on Climate Change sounds like a nice thing to dedicate your life to, right? It was terrifying how you went on reading and you started to realize that maybe different words were being used, but all the systemic problems and discrimination were still there; rich people were still using them to become richer, poor people were still having everything being taken from them.
-that being a white cis woman I could relate to the main character and ended up benefiting from her journey: what people were teaching her, they taught me, what she was trying to unlearn, I now know and can work on it too.
-the actual reading list from which I can start learning

Did I feel any positive emotions while reading this book? Yes. Did that make up about 5% of the book? Also yes. This is not a feel good book. I would actually say it is a feel bad book, because if you care about the characters or the real world that is unfortunately very similar to this alternate timeline, you will feel bad while reading.
That does not mean it's a bad book. I think it's actually a really good book, and I adored the characters, except poor Maddie, who I felt bad for without having to actually like. She's not supposed to be a hero, and I felt her love for the other characters, or at least I loved the other characters and maybe read into how much she loved them, and that was enough to make me not dislike her. I think a lot of this book was about coming from the perspective of whiteness while recognizing how messed up and unheroic white people are because of our shelteredness and how we expect to be the heroes. So the best parts were whenever Maddie was relaying the actions of the non-white characters.
I used to read purely for escapism, and in those days I would have DNFed this one right away. Now I read mostly for escapism but also to learn about the real world, which is where this book comes in. It has a lot of baby leftist explanations (by which I don't mean that the author is a baby leftist, but that they made it digestible for babies) and book recs on anarchy and Marxism and prison abolition nonfiction, and as I am a baby leftist I found all that very helpful and have added to my TBR.
But because I am still a reading for pleasure person, I can't have it among my five star reads because yeah, it left me super sad, and also made me feel sad and frustrated and second-hand embarrassed for pretty much the entire book. 4 stars.

What really sets the author apart is their ability to tackle deep, complex themes in a way that is both accessible and thought-provoking. The book explores themes of love, loss, and redemption, and the author's writing style adds a layer of depth and nuance that makes these themes all the more impactful.

For someone who is looking for a real fresh book to read, I’d recommend this. This book is for anyone looking for a truly unique reading experience. The author's writing style is truly one-of-a-kind.

The only thing that is keeping me from giving this a higher review is how I found myself rereading it a lot to understand moments and even some characters. It’s probably because this isn’t usually a book I’d pick up but since it was so highly talked about during the trans rights readathon I requested it to give it a strong chance.

I like Kern's writing style a lot, it's descriptive but not in a way that feels heavy; and they add world-building without it feeling like info-dumping. Unfortunately, my brain can't really handle a heavy/ thought-provoking book right now, so I am soft-DNFing. But it is still interesting to think about a world in which climate change is being counteracted, but there are still other systemic issues that need to be addressed. I think Kern is doing something very interesting with the genre.

This was such a powerful book that I’ll be thinking about for a long time. I originally requested this because of the Trans Rights Readathon and I’m glad I did. This is a book that needs to be read, and it’s hard to get through for sure because it does deal with some incredibly heavy but necessary topics. Major kudos to the author for making sure they included trigger and content warnings on their pages whenever they spoke about the book. That was very well done and appreciated!

I loved the premise of the alternative history seeking to answer to that occasionally repeated question of "what if Gore had won?" - would we be in a vastly different circumstance, or would some of the fundamental problems in society linger?

The protagonist of this tale is at times painfully awkward, vacillating between leaning into privilege or the "well intentioned" good white person archetype out in full force, and we know this person or perhaps we've been (or are) this person, and I know it was intentional, but that is not the perspective I generally want to read from.

That said, I still thought the story was extremely compelling in the first half or so of the book and I couldn't put it down. At least in part because I think Sim Kern really captured some of the chaotic and collaborative and complicated energy that can happen while living in communal punkish activistish housing, with shows happening in your living room, because I've been there. At some point I felt somewhat let down by the book, or more accurately dropped off a cliff by the book, along with some themes that I'd probably have preferred some kind of content warning for.

Thank you to NetGallley, Levine Querido, and Sim Kern for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.