this has stayed with me longer then i thought it would! interesting class critique set in a near future world where ecological collapse is ever present

Thank you S&S/Marysue Rucci for my free ARC of Hum by Helen Phillips — available now!

» READ IF YOU «
📱 are hopelessly addicted to your phone
🤖 love weird character-driven stories
🧑‍🔬 enjoy (are terrified by?) dystopian settings

» SYNOPSIS «
May's life is crumbling around her, and she attempts to salvage some happiness by selling her face to an AI company. With the money, she treats her family to a lavish Disneyworld-like vacation, but makes a huge blunder and becomes a social pariah because of it. Feeling the pressure, May is unsure who to trust and where to turn, especially when an AI bot shows up offering assistance.

» REVIEW «
This was suuuuch an interesting book, and man did I feel like a total loser with how much time I spend on my phone and connected to tech. So prepare for that 😂. Personally, I loved the ending because it's sort of ambiguous? It fosters amazing discussion with other readers, which is one of my favorite things that literature can do for society. This novel is relatively short but packs a punch, delving into relationships, technology, conservation, motherhood, empathy, and identity all at once. Loved it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I use assistive readers as an accessibility device because I take medications for disabilities that affect my vision. Since the author or publisher opted not to make assistive readers available on this ARC, I am unable to read it. I apologize for this inconvenience, but devices are necessary for disabled readers and should be made available to us.

I loved this one so much! It was so creepy how close to the present this book felt. It demonstrated out obsession with our screens and questioned truly where the line for technology is.

Readers have widely anticipated Hum after Phillips’ series of acclaimed books including her last novel The Need (2019), a New York Times Notable Book long-listed for the National Book Award. It doesn’t disappoint. Because of May’s extreme and constant insecurity, reading the novel can be an unpleasant experience — like being on an anxiety roller coaster. But because of Phillips’ incisive symbolism and sure-footed plotting, the reader emerges delighted, educated and not a little worried for the future.

In this novel, we are introduced to a family that is living in the not-too-distant future where climate change runs rampant and robots have taken on several important roles in society.

Nature is no longer freely available to enjoy and be soothed by, instead, you have to pay for entry into the Botanical Garden, which is insanely expensive.

While in the Botanical Garden, some unnerving things happen that cause the family to be put under extreme scrutiny, leading to lots of distress.

Overall, it's a really interesting read that although fiction, really forces us to reevaluate our relationship with the technology we possess in real life.

It's well-written, and engaging and I enjoyed it very much!

Thank you to #Netgalley for this ARC of #hum

Thank you to NetGalley and Marysue Rocci books for an advance reader copy.

This is the book we needed for this moment in time. Hum is a fast-paced exploration of the anxieties all parents face raising kids in today’s world. It explores our reliance on technology, a future in which we have ignored climate change, and helicopter parenting taken to the extreme. It is gripping, but also tender in its depiction of the characters. Helen Phillips has given us all something to think about. Highly recommend!

Loved this creepy dystopian novel that tackles technology, connection, consumerism, and privacy through a fast paced sci Fi story.

I really enjoyed this book! This story keeps you very engaged. I highly recommend reading this. It makes you think about the way we approach technology and nature. It also tackles how technology affect our relationships.

This book hits on so many things we're currently dealing with and is so relatable on many fronts. May is a wife and mother and she's just lost her job to AI. Unsure when she'll land her next one, she decides to undergo experimental facial surgery that will alter her appearance just enough to confuse the ever present cameras throughout the city, but will beef up their bank account with nearly a year's worth of cash. 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.

This was an interesting read. The premise and themes surrounding our dependence on technology versus the need for privacy and genuine human interactions worked well. However, the story felt incomplete. There were numerous plot holes, and the narrative lacked a clear direction. A more developed plot and characters could have significantly enhanced the impact of the story.

disclaimer: this review was written without the assistance of AI.

HUM was…wow. it surfaced all of my anxieties that i try to suppress about the world we live in today. perfectly disquieting and unsettling, HUM brought to life many of the themes that keep parents up at night- climate change, overconsumption, artificial intelligence, surveillance, the 24-hour news cycle, and more. and although Phillips did not focus in on character development, she perfectly captured the anxiety and whiplash of constantly living in unprecedented times through the eyes of May, Jem, and their young family.

many thanks to the team at marysue rucci books for the advanced copy.

Very relatable characters in a believable future not that far from now. The dilemmas they face are heart wrenching and a parent’s worst nightmare. I enjoyed the writing and read this in less than a day. The AI Hums are a bit more complicated than they first seem, but too much was left to the imagination about them at the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books for an ARC of this book.

3.5 stars rounded up as I keep thinking about it.

Set in a pretty horrifying very near future, this smart but rather gloomy novel looks at the effects on society, families, and individuals of climate change and the ever increasing presence of artificial intelligence.

May’s job working in AI communication has become obsolete because the hums (as this society refers to the physical embodiments of the network) have grown past human training. In a desperate attempt to get some money, she has her face altered in order to test the ability of surveillance cameras to recognize her. With some of this money, May splurges on a 3-night stay for her family at the Botanical Gardens, a resort that recreates the natural world of the not too distant past. Once there, however, things go terribly awry and May’s family is completely upended.

The zing of this novel comes from all the tiny details the author weaves into this world she has created by barely extrapolating from current news stories: The warm empathy of the hums towards May and her family blends smoothly into targeted advertising; the replacement of social connection with “wooms” and devices; the children with their iPhone-esque “bunnies” permanently strapped to their wrists; the looming unemployment and inequity crisis as hums take on more and more jobs.

May is straddled between two eras. She can still remember actual forests, though the one behind her parents’ house has burned down, but she is now an urban being, as dependent on her phone and woom as everyone else. The joys and burdens of motherhood, however, seem to be timeless, along with the societal expectations and fault finding that comes with it.

With the exception of May’s friend Nova, other human individuals are only referenced obliquely, including the older people who still employ May’s husband instead of a hum to do odd jobs. People are only seen as a mass, on the barren and sweltering streets or in the subway, or online in social media. There is a hint that future hum society could be more gracious and compassionate than the human one but also more authoritarian.

The author does not give us an escape; May and her family are stuck in their world as we soon may be. Recommended but only if you’re not waiting for someone to come and save the day.

Thanks to Simon Element and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

As AI takes over our jobs and tracks our lives, Hum asks the question: Is technology really our friend?

Hum by Helen Phillips presents a unique and thought-provoking premise, immersing readers in a disquieting near-future where intelligent and benevolent robots, known as "hums", are integrated into daily life. In this speculative world, hums track every moment of our existence, trailing us with the promise of anticipating our needs, but at what cost? If Orwell had imagined a future with AI, Hum might have been the result—equal parts fascinating and terrifying.

The story follows May, a woman navigating a city ravaged by climate change and dominated by smart technology. After losing her job to AI, May, burdened by debt, undergoes an experiment that alters her face, making it unrecognizable to the ever-present cameras. In a desperate attempt to escape, she takes her family to one of the last green spaces, only to discover that leaving their devices behind brings unexpected stress. When her children's lives are threatened, May is forced to place her trust in a hum with questionable motives.

Phillips excels in worldbuilding, crafting an immersive environment filled with dread, anxiety, and chaos. The book explores the emotional and physical toll of constant surveillance and touches on significant themes like marriage, motherhood, selfhood, global warming, and technological advancement. However, despite its well-written prose and intriguing concept, Hum feels somewhat meandering, as if it’s juggling two different storylines that never fully converge.

In a world where technology promises convenience, Hum shows us the emotional price we pay for it. While the premise is undeniably compelling, and the writing style is solid, the plot itself lacks the depth and resolution I was hoping for. It’s a quick read, but it left me wanting more substance to match the initial intrigue.

Overall, Hum is not a bad read, especially for fans of speculative fiction, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

Thank you to Simon Element for providing me with an Advance Readers Copy for review.

This dystopian novel was right up my alley with AI in the spotlight and forests being in amusement parks that only the rich can access. While I say dystopian, the scary part is that this looks like the future we are headed toward which makes it that much more scary. Phillips brough t so many important questions to light about AI and technology! I am absolutely impressed with this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the future!

"It was common knowledge that hums were designed to obey human requests.. To do no harm to humans."

Hmm . . . I seem to remember a bespectacled gentleman with mutton chops mentioning something about that way back in the fifties.
As I recall, things didn't turn out very well.

Here we have a mother willing to trade in her own identity for a chance to give her family an unforgettable vacation.

And, yeah, things don't turn out too well for them either.

I really liked this one. The author deftly mixes blissful domestic scenes of everyday life with the anxiety and tension caused by financial insecurity, and the daily horrors reported by the newscasters. Everyone is connected to a device 24/7. Climate change has made life unlivable for many, yet plastics are still prevalent. This is speculative fiction, though much of it feels ripped from today's headlines.

Is it any wonder our heroine wants to escape for a few days to a blissful recreation of the past?

Packed with raw emotion this is a highly disturbing and perplexing read. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time to come . . . possibly even the rest of my life.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster/Simon Element/Marysue Rucci Books for gifting me a digital ARC of this fascinating book by Helen Phillips. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4.5 stars!

May has a job "teaching" AI to be more intelligent. But when her goal is accomplished and AI is smarter than humans, she loses her job. As the breadwinner of her family, consisting of husband, Jem, and children, Lu and Sy, she undertakes a procedure for to earn money that requires surgery to change her face so that it can't be recognized by surveillance cameras. After getting caught up on bills, May decides to splurge on a 3-day trip to the Botanical Garden, a refuge where forests, streams, and animals flourish - but only for those who can afford it. Wanting an immersive experience, she insists that everyone leave their phones and devices at home. But when there is an issue, May has to trust a hum to help her.

I tore through this book. It's thought-provoking on a near-future basis as well as our current culture. With AI being so prevalent now, it's not a big stretch to think that Hums could be part of our future. With climate changes and resultant devastation to our forests from wildfires, losing access to nature is certainly feasible. We are already living in a more virtual world than a real one, proven by our addiction to our devices. The best family experiences already go only to those who can afford them (think skipping lines at DisneyWorld). This book looks at motherhood in the midst of all that, and how one incident can change everything we hold to be true. The writing was wonderful and I'll be thinking about May for a while.

Over the weekend in the swimming pool, as a robot skimmer swept past me removing insects and small leaves from the surface of the water and we listened to music beamed wirelessly from my phone to a portable, voice-controllable, waterproof speaker across the patio, I was struck by the idea that we are very much living in the "future". We may not have all of the inventions imagined by science fiction writers over the years (still no flying cars or teleportation), but when you stop to think about it, we do have more of them than we might have expected to even a decade or two ago. And while that revelation can be somewhat awe-inspiring, when one considers the pace of change and the myriad negatives that same technology has had on our society it can also be more than a little frightening. Helen Phillips manages to perfectly capture those conflicting emotions in her short but stunning latest, Hum.

May recently lost her job developing the communicative abilities of AI when the hums (human-like robots) became smart enough to handle the task on their own. Now relying on her husband Jem's TaskRabbit-like gig work to support their small family, they are falling behind on bills while May continues in vain to find employment. Daughter Lu and son Sy are both addicted to the Bunny devices they keep strapped to their wrists, which also allow their parents to monitor their location and vitals, and to their Wooms, cocoon-like spaces they can hide in and browse the internet, while Jem relentlessly checks his phone, keeping an eye on his abnormally high customer rating.

May longs for more human connection with her family, recalling what it was like growing up before an unnamed ecological disaster struck, decimating the planet's natural resources, but she finds her husband and children either unwilling or unable to participate. She enrolls in a trial program for a new cosmetic procedure that promises to subtly alter a person's face enough to avoid identification by the surveillance systems in place around the city in exchange for enough money to sustain the family for several more months, and then immediately decides to spend a large chunk of her payout on a vacation to the Botanical Gardens, a walled off site amidst the city's industrial sprawl that features lush forests, fresh fruit, and wild creatures seldom seen anymore. When she informs them of her purchase, Jem is initially worried over the expense, but the kids are beyond excited, and since her discounted rate requires them to enter the next day, they pack their things, get some sleep, and head to the park, but (at May's insistence) without all of their devices.

While May is initially blissful in the Botanical Garden, on the second day she and Jem become separated from Lu and Sy. Detached from their technology, the hums that man the park are heavily limited in their ability to help and May begins to search frantically for them on her own as she finds herself second-guessing all of her decisions and desires. In an increasingly tech-obsessed world all she wanted was an authentic experience with her loved ones, but in so doing has she failed at her job to keep her children safe?

The near-future world that Phillips has created here is well-imagined and frighteningly plausible, perhaps because of how strikingly similar it is to today. Anyone who has ever wondered at and worried over the breakneck rate of technological advancement we are currently living through will feel an immediate kinship with May. But many of the fears she experiences are relevant in any time and will ring true to any parent, succinctly summed up by a hum who assesses her by saying, "You feel disoriented, May. You are unsure how to be in the world as it is now. You know the world is damaged, but you don't know what that means for the lives of your children. You want to prepare them for the future, but you are scared to picture the future. You are seeking inside yourself the scrappiness, the courage, that will power the rest of your life."

May lives in a world where everything is available almost instantly with a simple voice command. Where technology is cheap as long as you're willing to put up with relentless targeted advertising. Where the planet is dying and jobs are disappearing and people communicate with each other via AI-generated text messages, if at all. This is alarmingly close to today by design, and it will have you questioning your own relationship to technology. Whether Hum actually inspires you to make any changes is up to you, but it's a thoughtfully written and deeply engaging story that proves hard to put down. It's one of my favorite reads this year and it will certainly get readers talking. Or at least checking to see if their hands look "old."

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This book took me by surprise. While I did find it hard to connect with May as a character, the writing was very beautiful. It began with a very real fear that many have, an A.I. taking over her job leaving her family with little to no money. After undergoing an experimental procedure to camouflage her face from facial recognition with some sort of tattoo, she receives a large sum of money in return. Rather than saving the money or paying off debts, she decides to pay for a family vacation to the city to the Botanical Garden, which is an environmental sanctuary with trees, clean water, and animals that can't be found elsewhere due to extreme climate change.

This book is less plot based and more introspective, tackling a few common issues. Normally, I would not gravitate towards something with such little actual plot, but Phillips writing is so good that I didn't find myself losing interest as I tend to with this kind of sci-fi. Hum discusses technology, climate change, money and family issues, and the desperation that many people feel when they don't have money for even basic necessities. The technology, in this case, was more of the focus, with Hums being the central AI that people encounter everyday. These reminded me of the Black Mirror episode "Fifteen Million Merits", where the entertainment and service bots and technology will intermittently advertise to you. You can pay to skip the targeted advertisements. Hum was one of those sci-fi books that makes you question things, which is a huge reason that I'm drawn to the sci-fi genre in general. I highly recommend this book.