The closer a storyline is to the truth, the more scary it is. This book will be giving me nightmares for weeks!

Facial recognition to the point of zero privacy (cuz cameras are everywhere) prompts a mom to alter her face. Now she has to use her fingerprints to pay for anything, prove her identity, enter the subway, open a cab door. Still seems like an invasion of privacy to me. When fingerprints won’t suffice as ID, her DNA is used. Still, cameras record, then blast on social media; and strangers think they have the right to contact her and tell her how horrible she is. And the ads! Good lordy the ads are non stop! Ads are bad in real life, imagine them a 100 times worse. Dystopian but also not really; we aren’t too far from this being real life.

I think the part that struck me was when the kids are playing and it’s a game to look for hiding places in case of an active shooter.

In 20 to 30 years, people reading this book will either be bored cuz it’s not fiction compared to what they live every day, or will be amazed at how well the author foretold the future.

Reading Hum is like watching a YouTube video to learn how to give the heimlich but being interrupted by an advertisement before you can save the person from choking. Phillips truly captures what it feels like to live in a dystopian capitalist nightmare: unrelentingly frustrating, deeply unfair, and completely absurd. I could not put this book down: it is definitely food for my anxieties!

When May’s job becomes redundant -another casualty to the efficiency of AI-her best option for employment is to teach students about history by pretending to be a person who existed before the internet. In an effort to keep her family afloat, she participates in a procedure that makes her face unrecognizable to facial detection software. Interestingly, becoming unrecognizable in a world where every face is known makes May even more visible. It also puts her family at risk. This is a really interesting conceit for the story and it is well executed throughout.

The plot moves quickly and kept me engrossed in the story from beginning to end. It’s like an elevated page turner because the story is not particularly sensationally dramatic but I still could not put it down. Phillip’s does great work playing on our underlining anxieties- I felt most stressed when May made unnecessary purchases with dwindling job prospects. But that is the world we live in. Hum calls attention to how difficult it is to navigate a world designed for consumption.

As much as I found May’s decisions frustrating, I was deeply invested in how her family’s fate would unravel. The family
dynamics are unsettling but also very familiar. I can see how our ever growing dependence on technology can slowly displace human connection. May can see what is lost and is desperate to hold on to the last threads of reality connecting her family. She wants to keep her family anchored in the natural world but there is so little nature left to explore, unless you can afford to purchase the experience, of course. May is not a fully developed character- but that makes sense. She is so immersed in escapism that she can’t quite figure out how to be fully human again.

Readers of The Heart Goes Last and Good Mothers will enjoy this story. There are many connections to ideas about motherhood and how the public holds the power to extend or withhold grace to mothers. Living under capitalism is weird and makes very human desires like love and lust and joy so much more difficult. Phillips wrote an incredibly successful dystopian novel that is about so much more than my review can do justice.

Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the ARC for review.

I really enjoyed this book - I couldn’t put it down! I would absolutely recommend it to my literature students, and I will be buying some copies for my classroom library once it’s available. I appreciated the way the author built dread in a way that resonates with our tech/social media experiences today, as well as showing us an ominous view of the futures . It also critiqued how mothers are treated versus fathers in an important and thoughtful way. The way this author writes is mesmerizing in its muted terror: The Need grabbed me in a similar way.

Hum, mmmmm! Compelling work. Enjoyed how this story explored a lot of what is our current culture. Thought provoking or anxiety inducing… depending your take either way great writing and take on family and motherhood as well. Thank you for the chance to review this ARC.

Hum, a compelling work of speculative fiction by Helen Phillips, immerses readers in a world where the lines between dystopia and utopia blur, making us question the cost of technological advancement and the sacrifices we make for the sake of survival.

The story revolves around May, a wife and mother living in a city plagued by climate change and dominated by intelligent robots known as "hums." After losing her job to artificial intelligence, May undergoes a risky procedure to become undetectable to surveillance, all in a desperate attempt to provide for her family. As she grapples with the consequences of her decision, the narrative takes us on a thought-provoking journey through themes of family, identity, and the impact of technology on our lives.

Helen Phillips' writing is taut and urgent, pulling readers into a world that feels both familiar and unsettlingly foreign. She masterfully explores the complexities of marriage and motherhood in an era of rapid technological advancement and environmental decay. The character development is profound, and May's struggles and sacrifices resonate on a deeply emotional level.

The juxtaposition of a deteriorating world with the allure of the Botanical Garden, a green refuge from the chaos, adds layers of complexity to the narrative. May's attempt to disconnect her family from their devices highlights our society's addiction to technology and raises questions about the true meaning of connection and freedom.

As the story unfolds, it's impossible not to reflect on our own relationship with technology and the environment. Phillips paints a vivid picture of a future that is uncomfortably close to our present, making us ponder the consequences of our choices and the world we are shaping for future generations.

In "Hum," Helen Phillips has crafted a thought-provoking and beautifully written novel that challenges us to confront uncomfortable truths about our world. It is a poignant exploration of the human spirit's resilience in the face of adversity, a cautionary tale about the perils of unchecked technological progress, and a testament to the enduring power of family bonds.

I would like to extend my gratitude to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. "Hum" is a must-read for those who appreciate speculative fiction that pushes boundaries and prompts introspection.

This was up my street — anxious, urgent, and un-put-downable. May was a sympathetic enough character, caught up in the overwhelming pace of the times. However, I never felt like I got to know her enough to care about her or anyone else in the book. This is largely how the story was written, and perhaps purposely so — people's individuality is often erased or overshadowed by marketing, technology, surveillance, etc. I felt somewhat mentally overwhelmed reading this, which is how May clearly felt, so Phillips was really successful in this way.

That being said, I did think the ending was a bit abrupt. To raise such high stakes and then <spoiler> dash them without consequence and with no real explanation for why seemed a bit, "Welp, I'd better wrap this novel up now"</spoiler> and was a bit of a letdown as a result, but only slightly. This was a fast read, with fast storytelling, and feels very much the way life is heading for many of us, sadly. We're already at a place where we value technological connection rather than real, human connection with one another and the earth, so this was a sad mirror to the way we're all heading.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

I usually quite like Helen Phillips' writing. The Need and The Beautiful Bureaucrat were both so evocative and weird - in a good way - and her use of language was so clever and original... Unfortunately, I struggled with this book in a way that I didn't expect, and was ultimately unable to finish as a result. She tends to write odd tales with dystopian elements, but this time the darkness just overwhelmed me and I could not find my way into the story as a result. I generally am not a fan of dystopian novels - the real world is dark enough these days without throwing myself into an immersive version of it that is falling even further into a black hole of horribleness - and that may well be where this one and I diverged so much. This one felt darker and heavier than the others - which is saying a lot - and I just couldn't get past that feeling to actually enjoy the story. There's nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't a good fit for me.

I requested this e-galley based on the description---recently, I've been a sucker for speculative-y literary fiction. And this did not disappoint! There was so much care put on the level of motherhood as a thread that really made this novel stand out. In this sense it was a lot like The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, dystopian novels about the surveillance placed on mothers. HUM tells the story of a woman who undergoes an experimental surgery to make her face undetectable to surveillance technology. Her and her husband are in a financial rut. With some of the money she earns from the surgery/trial, she takes her family on a trip to the Botanical Garden (this is a novel about climate catastrophe as well), and there things take a bit of a turn. I enjoyed this novel, its briskness, its tenderness. Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!

May Webb has lost her job to AI, her husband is only able to find gig work through an app and they are struggling to support their two children. She is offered an opportunity to make ten months worth of pay if she is willing to have a procedure done that will slightly alter her face. In a world where technology is taking over, this experiment is an attempt to see what will happen if surveillance is unable to detect her face. In desperation, she accepts the offer and then splurges on a 3 day family vacation at Botanical Gardens, an expensive retreat lush with forests, animals, fresh fruit, real beds. The kids are horrified when May insists that they unplug and leave all technology behind. Her plan to escape reality at such an elite paradise results in unexpected obstacles and events that threaten her family.
Hum is the exploration of technology in the future, a lost Mother’s attempts at protecting her family in a desolate world. This book gave me anxiety, and made me sad although I believe that was the intention.
Thank you Simon Element, S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.

Hum was an anxiety inducing, dystopian peek into the natural trajectory of our own world, but with so much to say, I feel that it wasn't able to say enough about any one theme is attempted to explore.

May has hit a rough patch in life. Recently laid off from her job due to the rise in automation and the introduction of artificial beings into the workforce called Hums, she has been struggling to land on her feet so she can continue to help support her husband Jem, a gig worker, and her two children, Sy and Lu. After a former coworker connects her to a local startup that is apparently exploring how to surgically modify faces to become unrecognizable to the big brother-esque security networks, May has enough money to finally have a bit of a safety net for her family, and a slightly new face. She takes this opportunity to buy a three day stay for her family to the Botanical Gardens, a half fake nature oasis in the middle of the city where they can disconnect and explore urban nature. After MUCH coaxing, May convinces Jem to leave his phone and removes her children's "bunnies" or child friendly computing devices (think apple watches, or iPads on demand for kids), they finally start to enjoy themselves despite the growing tension between Jem and May that she would make such an expensive purchase when they need to save in their financial instability. After a scary incident at the gardens, the family narrowly avoids tragedy with the help of a Hum, but this is just a start to their problems as the family tries to return to their stressful lives. Dealing with the fallout of this incident and their daily lives which includes incessant advertising, distant children addicted to screens, a lack of mutual trust with Jem, and the world's eyes casting judgment, May is stretched thinner than ever, desperate for a life line so she doesn't drown.

Despite the over arching story being fairly straightforward, there was a LOT going on in this book. Each tiny chapter about May's life was filled with advertising, natural disasters, technology addiction, viral videos, and job insecurity. Just about every dialogue she had with her son Sy mentioned another depressing fact about some animal going extinct or a viral video the children were addicted to. Every conversation with a Hum was littered with advertising. Every description of the outside focused on the heat, the humidity, the air quality index, and the crowds. I understand the purpose of this, but with so much going on, it was difficult to find the message here. While this whole book might be summarized as "phone bad," I do think an attempt was made to make it more nuanced. But this was lost in the attempt at creating this building anxiety within the reader. I think that was intentional, but I don't think it was intentional to distract from the main takeaways from the story. This could have been really interesting had it been a bit more focused in what it was trying to do by perhaps eliminating some of the more unexplored themes like the dangers of "going viral," the strangely out of place tension May seemed to have with Jem, or the seeming afterthought of humanizing Hums. Overall, it was a bit convoluted for me to really enjoy. While this could have been very thought provoking, with so much going on, I fear the meat of it isn't really going to stay with me.

Absolutely loved so much about this novel. May is a wonderful protagonist whose anxiety towards AI is so familiar the more Machine Learning and everything tied to that seems to evolve daily.

Phillips is excellent at framing not only that feeling of anxiousness that comes with these advancements but also the occasional guilt that creeps up when one is forced to acknowledge still using this technology despite the ramifications of training it means you actively contribute to the unintentional harm that comes along with it.

AI exists to make our lives easier, in theory, but with the continued use of it there is the risk of employment opportunities dwindling and privacy becoming a luxury. The environmental effects of online shopping and the risk of automated cars, etc. On the flipside, the kneejerk reaction of unplugging yourself from the word to exist above it all, only makes you susceptible to something else.

I'm not the type of person to read stories that are rooted in motherhood when the children aren't adults but after reading this I'll definitely open myself up to it more, it was kind of eye-opening? I love solid portrayals of families and this was definitely one of them.

A lot of the technology in this exists sorta-kinda already which really made it so easy to imagine, which really drew me into the story start to finish. There are no wasted moments and I honestly would not do anything different. This could have easily been a story about fearing everything about technology but it wasn't that. I think a lot of people will enjoy this one and I will immediately check out more of Phillips' work.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I approve of this transaction! Fast-paced and anxiety provoking, Hum is a perfect blend of problems in our current society and how they may look in the not-so-distant future. I am not often drawn to science fiction novels, but I was drawn to Helen Phillips' exploration highlighting our society's deeply entrenched consumerism and judgement towards motherhood. I loved the main character May and could empathize with her hopes and fears related to her family.

An intimate portrayal of a family, the difficulties with everyday life, and how just a few minutes can alter your future. I often found myself reflecting on my own motherhood and how I would have responded if facing the same challenges as May. In a world of technology and influence, this book may make you want to unplug - in the best way!

Thank you so much to Simon Element, S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books, and Net Galley for an ARC of this book! I really enjoyed it and hope others will have the same experience.

Reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode. Very thought provoking and horrifying, especially in a world where technology seems to be advancing at an alarming rate.

This book gave me such anxiety! It is hyper consumerism/capitalism with AI/robots, about motherhood and family. A must read!

I just reviewed Hum by Helen Phillips. #NetGalley