I was really excited about this book so it’s a disappointment taht I just never really got into it. I have picked it up and put it back down many times over the past months and I have finally just realized it’s not going to grab me. There is something just not quite working for me - the author is very talented, the idea is cool, the narrative is well written, but I just don’t like these rich jerks and I don’t care about this world at all. So it’s going to be a DNF for me.

I do really appreciate the opportunity to have a review copy (thank you to the publisher and NetGalley!) and wish it would have worked for me. I still would def want to check out her next book - I absolutely loved her previous book and expect great things in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Future by Naomi Alderman!

Alderman once again puts us in a world that is falling apart, run by greedy billionaires who don't care what damage they do to the world as long as they keep making more money. What would happen if those three billionaires, think Amazon, Facebook and Twitter, were removed from the world and their money put to saving the planet and all of the people on it? Look into The Future and get an idea of how that might go....

This dystopian look at a future from multiple characters’ perspective had me on the edge of my seat. Make this a movie please!

Do billionaires really think about the end of the world like this? Should I start learning basic survivalist skills? I’m still spiraling with existential questions, and I finished reading this several weeks ago. All I can say is, if you liked The Power, you will likely love The Future. Different worlds but similar observations on humanity.

4.5 stars rounded up

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the early copy!

Naomi Alderman is so skilled at building a world that is simultaneously utopian and dystopian, and that feels so similar to the world we're inhabiting in our current reality. It took a chapter or two to let myself sink into the world she built in The Future, and once I did I was in too deep to stop reading until I reached the last page. The way this book took me from hope to despair to hope again was almost painful, and so intoxicating. I've already recommended this to several friends and can't wait to buy a physical copy for my personal shelves.

Intense realism, religious extremism - if you had the power to change the future and save the planet what would you do to see it done? The Future, this future - which (future) is the book and what is our reality? The warnings in the book could so easily have been taken from our headlines - cataclysmic corruption leads to the end for all but those who have the foresight to prepare for what is coming. This book left me reeling, trying to keep up with Lai as she unravels the secrets that led up to the collapse of civilization, and her fight with those left behind to save what was left. Thought provoking and terrifying - I couldn't put the book down. (less)

Very compelling premise but hard for me to stay engaged with… very difficult to stay anchored to this story because of all the unlikeable characters and changes in POV. not my favorite.

<i>The future calls us on one painful step at a time and the first rule of life is to survive.</i>

<i>The Future</i> is a well written novel in the sci-fi / dystopia realm of things. It is told from the perspective of a longer list of characters over different timelines that end up connecting together.

Two of the female leads are preppers or survivalists who are smart and ready to take on the end of days. The others are billionaires or children of them who run major tech companies, similar to today’s social media platforms… one with a bird logo that leads to the obvious.

I enjoyed the high tech part of this and could see how much of this could be reality, if it’s not already.

However, the book lost me about 3/4’s of the way through and I didn’t love the “twist” at the end. Also didn’t particularly like any of the characters. That made this feel really long since I didn’t really care what happened to any of them.

<i>The only way to really control the future is if you’re the one making it happen.</i>

Many thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. <i>The Future</i> drops November 7, 2023.

Be warned this book is broken up into different sections which can make the timeline a bit jumpy but besides that I enjoyed this book

Absolutely brilliant!! This novel by Naomi Alderman is a well written science fiction story that hits scarily close to home. Alderman draws on the realities of a technology obsessed world that is destroying itself in its process toward what is thought to be a “better” future.

In the book, tech moguls are ruling the world and are confident in their ability to survive the inevitable apocalypse. Others spend time online chatting on end-of-day forums, sharing survival tips and religious perspectives. As various groups are working toward different outcomes, it leaves the reader wondering if the world be saved or destroyed.

This novel is as much philosophy as it is science fiction. It could also be considered an apocalypse tale. It was a fascinating read and would make a fantastic book club selection as there is much discussion that can be had. I am looking forward to reading other works by this author.

Thank you to #NetGalley for an eARC and #Simon&SchusterBookClubFavorites for an ARC of #TheFuture by #NaomiAlderman in exchange for honest feedback. -5 stars

what happens when techbro ecofascists fuck the lives of the planet and everyone in it? "the future" seeks to explore that.

in the not-so-distant future, three techbro billionaires control just about everything. software, hardware, stocks, oil, charitable funds, etc. when their hardcore crazy AI end times predictor gives them a warning that they are in imminent danger of apocalyptic events, they run off to hide in their majorly secure bunker which is eight stories and cost billions of dollars. do they warn the rest of the world? no! they save themselves (and maybe a few others) because that's what they do.

zehn is a chinese-american lesbian who gets sucked into this mess when she starts a love affair with one of the techbro's glorified secretaries. she's smart enough to survive, she posts her own videos about survival techniques. but will she?

warning: this book is long. but it is so fucking good. do you ever read something and become deeply engrossed in it to the point that if anyone tries to talk to you, you want to scream at them? yeah, this book got me. it's fun, it's twisty, it's silly, it's relevant, it's true, and it gives the socialist some hope for the future.

eat the rich!!!!

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Naomi Alderman is an expert at giving the reader a masterful ploy of twists and turns. I take pride and joy in being able to predict what comes next in the plot but in this is instance, I didn’t feel any urge to even try. I was eager and enjoyed following the story as long as deemed necessary. At times while reading was it a lot of information? Yes. Did it scare me a little about how valid and unnerving some ideas about technology were? Also yes. Even so, I still kept reading. Having read and loved Alderman’s previous book The Power, I was excited but with caution. I didn't want to get my hopes up too high. This book is a standout on its own. The multiple perspectives and keen details you’ll find in both books but they are each their own story. Plus, LGBTQ+ representation was a nice bonus. A great read but make sure you give yourself the chance to take in all the ideas that come from it, some are subliminal while some might be from what a few of you are holding in your hands right now.

"It is not possible to express this with symbols. All the symbols can ever be is a flag in the sand pointing at where to dig. You have found the treasure. It is the world as it is."


Thank you to Naomi Alderman, NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster.

The Power tackled sexism and The Future tackles capitalism. This book is about a group of billionaire leaders that are helping towards the destruction of the planet while secretly preparing for their own safety in secret. It is not a stretch of the imagination to take these fictional characters and relate them to real ones in today’s society. It was a very interesting read and I recommend it. It was not quite as powerful for me as The Power was, but it is still an interesting concept and worth the read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy.

This is one of the best books I've read all year. The concept was really intriguing and I found myself surprised at the twists and turns—which is unusual. I found the pacing to be a bit slow to start but really picked up around the 30% mark and I couldn't put it down.

The publisher's synopsis of this novel makes it sound fascinating, a definite must read. Sadly, the synopsis was a much more interesting read than the actual book.

I tried very hard to get through this. I really did. I got one third of the way through and, just couldn't take it anymore. Prose that was drier than a desert in July, characters that all had the personality of a baked potato, and a story that pulls you here, and there, and back here, and over there. I got whiplash from trying to figure out if we were in the present, or the past, or the future.

Conversation and/or dialogue between characters was nonexistent. We are literally told everything without being able to try and ferret out their feelings/thoughts/motives for ourselves. There is a running lecture on Lot, his family, and Sodom. I never did figure out the significance. It felt like the author knew but didn't want to wait for the reader to catch up. So, it kept going on and on. And on. And on.

So, again, full confession, I DNF this novel. I did jump to the last chapter to see if things picked up (more of the same) and the 'epilogue' (set Many, Many Years later). I had to struggle to get through these two. Not because I was lost or didn't know what was going on. But because it was so much more of the same never-ending dusty prose, lack of personalities, and just ho hum, don't care about any of these people or what happened to them.

I have no doubt there are readers out there who would enjoy this type of writing. I did not.

The Future is an exciting sci-fi thriller with a lot of big ideas and some plot twists I didn’t see coming. I found the story compelling, and I enjoyed the back-and-forth between the past and present narrations (although that occasionally made it difficult for me to remember what was happening in the main plot). Unfortunately, some sections of the novel felt disjointed, and the last couple sections were especially jarring when compared to everything that came before. Overall, though, this was still a very good book, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys dystopian thrillers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a digital ARC of this book.

The Future by Naomi Alderman was a delightful book. I listened to this narrator and I was engrossed in the story almost immediately.. I enjoy the interplays between the characters and their development through the story. It's a thought invoking story that I would suggest you pick up and read.

I really tried to like this, but I just had a really hard time. I couldn't get into it and had to start it over several times. It had a lot of promise, I liked the idea, but it all just fell flat for me. I felt at times like there were many agendas being pushed on me and once I get that feeling, it's hard to shake. I don't know if that was the authors intent, but a lot of it all just felt really forced and stereotypical.

I did think the message boards were a nice touch. I enjoyed those and they were a good way to break up the other parts of the story, but overall the pace seemed slow. I'm not sure what exactly made the book unenjoyable for me. It's hard to pinpoint. I just think it was a mixture of things. There were too many characters, I think...which usually doesn't bother me, but this time I got confused. I think maybe it's because they all had very unique names. I guess that's my problem, not the author's.

Honestly, I think one thing that bothered me was I got this feeling like the author thought she was better and smarter than me. Again, that may have been a personal problem, but it felt a little pretentious.

I really appreciate the opportunity to read it. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

This book gripped me, made me think, and made me tell all of my friends. It's technically science fiction, but in the vein of Margaret Atwood, not aliens and spaceships. It's a thinly veiled criticism of the way we let a few companies dominate our world, despite the fact that they don't have our interests at heart. When they talk about the future, they are talking about the hope that they, at least, will survive the future disasters that they have failed to prevent for the rest of us. They are talking about a future that they'll ride out in their bunkers while the rest of us burn. And yet, the book is more nuanced than a simple lecture on the evils of tech. The narrative is interspersed with long musings on biblical stories, for a reason that is unclear at first but eventually weaves the story together. This is a book I'll be thinking about for months, and it was a breeze to read. I was barely able to put it down even two hours after my bedtime.

The first half of this book dragged some for me, but it started to picked up about half way through. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the story and the different ecological and religious themes throughout. The message board sections were a nice way to break up sections of the book and kept me engaged. I do wish we would have had a few more chapters from the POVs of some of the more interesting side characters.