Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Books for providing me with an advance reader copy of This Great Hemisphere.

Mateo Askaripour delivers an ambitious and thought-provoking speculative novel set in a dystopian future where humanity’s divisions—racial, social, and environmental—are starkly literalized.

The story opens with a striking prologue in modern-day New York City: a Black unhoused woman gives birth to a child who is quite literally invisible. This haunting and emotional scene set a high bar for the rest of the book, drawing me in with its raw poignancy and crackling prose. From there, we leap 500 years into a dystopian future where the concept of invisibility transforms into a societal allegory.

At the center of the narrative is Sweetmint, an Invisible young woman navigating an oppressive, apartheid-like system where the Dominant Population (DPs) controls every facet of life. Her journey begins as an apprentice to the Great Architect but soon spirals into a gripping tale of murder, conspiracy, and rebellion when her estranged brother is accused of assassinating the Chief Executive.

Askaripour’s world-building is stunning, crafting a future that feels both alien and eerily familiar. The societal structures, new technologies, and even unique cultural markers like “rumoyas” (a person’s cell spirit) are intricate and immersive. Themes of race, power, and systemic oppression are woven throughout, offering a sharp critique of present-day inequities.

However, the novel is not without its challenges. The sheer volume of world-specific terminology and a sprawling cast of characters occasionally made the narrative feel dense. I found the first half slower to get through as I acclimated to the world, but once the plot gained momentum, I couldn’t put it down. Sweetmint’s character arc is especially compelling, showcasing resilience and growth in the face of unimaginable odds.

While This Great Hemisphere may not appeal to everyone due to its complexity and allegorical nature, fans of speculative fiction that challenges societal norms and makes you reflect deeply will find much to admire here. It’s a book that lingers long after the final page.

Bottom Line: A bold and imaginative exploration of power, oppression, and hope, This Great Hemisphere cements Askaripour as a voice to watch in speculative fiction.

I really wanted to love this book, but I had such a hard time following it. I'm DNFing at 61% because I just have too many other books to get to.

This novel was a bit slow going in the first few chapters, but it sure did pick up after that, I'm glad I stuck with it!

The world-building that the author did was a large task, and for the most part, it was done fairly well. But at the beginning of the novel it almost lost me as many of the terms that were presented were not given enough context to decipher what they meant and I felt a bit lost. As you got further along in the novel, many of those words did start to make sense so my advice would be to stick with it. So much of the novel makes sense the further you go along.

The story itself was dense and heavy. It was a story of rebellion and hope, but the subject matter dealt heavily with topics of racism, slavery, genocide, bigotry, hate, and violence, and at times it would make you angry reading how the DPs would treat the Invisibles. It reminded me of the Holocaust, concentration camps, and even how African Americans were treated in the US after slavery. Lots to unpack with this story in those terms and certainly made you think about how others have been treated in our past.

Looking at the story as a whole, it was quite good and I enjoyed the story of revolution and trying to find your place in the world.

I haven't read a lot of speculative/dystopian fiction, and I loved BLACK BUCK by this author so I was excited to dive in and try something new. I thought this was a chilling perspective on class and race in a really unique way. Mateo Askaripour has a great way of creating social commentary with unique plots and characters. He is definitely an auto buy author for me!

Askaripour built a fascinating world with this one. While the story is set in a dystopian 2529 and includes Invisible People oppressed by Dominant People, the parallels to our current world are easy to spot. The POVs alternate between an invisible MC, Sweetmint, and some key players in the politics of the hemisphere. Having a character that’s discovering how things work, is a handy tool for world building and Askaripour uses Sweetmint’s discoveries as she moves around the world to do most of the world building. While the naivete of the character makes some of her sections feel a bit YA, the political intrigue along with the other themes explored, balances that out some. While I really appreciated what Askaripour did with this one, I would have been ok with the book either being much longer for deeper world building or shorter and embracing the speculative side more.

I'll admit first that this isn't my typical genre. The world building was a struggle for me but that's on me.

I did enjoy the character building, diversity and themes of this novel. I tried to envision this future and a race of invisible people and made a lot of connections to what a think are real and present issues for Black people.

Askaripour is an author to watch and think this will be a great book for the right reader- someone looking for a diverse science and speculative fiction.

Mateo Askaripour has a lot to say, and he is using novels to say it. His first novel, "Black Buck" was a satirical novel about workplace racism. Now he has moved us into the future with a speculative dystopian world in "This Great Hemisphere." However, his message is still similar. We humans "will always find a way to differentiate and subjugate." In this case, there is the dominant population vs the invisibles. Whether he is talking about blacks or invisibles, he wants us to "see" his characters and understand their struggles. The irony of the subjugated population being invisible is not lost on me.

There are times this story is hard to follow, but the message never is. There will always be a dominant group, There will always be a group treated as less than. That group will try to rebel and the dominant group will fight even harder to maintain their position. This has happened for millennia. We can only hope to become less violent and less selfish over time. Mateo's novels are important reads, and I'm looking forward to where he will take us with his next one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group for an ecopy. My opinion is my own.

This Great Hemisphere was a wonderful read. I liked the character exploration and the writing was propulsive. I would read more from this author.

honestly, i loved the today's-world prologue of this so much more than the speculative=fiction actual plot, which felt too YA dystopian compared to the raw and striking first pages.

All over the place story and the full suspension of disbelief was never achieved for the print book and audiobook.

This is one I had high hopes for. This is the second book by the author, and I have read his first book as well. The 2 are totally different from each other. In my opinion this is the author's attempt at a more complex work of art. It may be his preferred genre to write given the diversity of the characters in this one. I did not love this story but was intrigued by the concept of it. It was a very slow burn and some details about the MFC were a miss to me and I got hung up on those as clues to her true genetic makeup and identity- her height for example. This is written for lovers of speculative fiction. This was a thriller/mystery that reads very slow and detailed and is action packed at the very end. It did keep me guessing, but it also had me wondering if I should just DNF it. This book also left me feeling very sad and confused which made it hard for me to gather my thoughts and give it a review. I also buddy read this with a friend and I did finish but she did not -overall this one is a mixed bag. Would I read another book by this author --yes most likely. I am rating this one a solid 3.5 I think speculative readers will love this one. I think maybe i prefer a more straight forward sci-fi dystopian tale.

Back in 2021, I absolutely devoured Mateo Askaripour’s BLACK BUCK, a satirical workplace novel packed with commentary about racism in the workplace. In the years since, I was eagerly awaiting news of his follow-up novel and was equal parts surprised and intrigued to learn it was speculative fiction.

THIS GREAT HEMISPHERE (thank you @duttonbooks for my copy!) is set in a futuristic community and follows Sweetmint, an ambitious young woman who earns a plum apprenticeship working for one of the Northwestern Hemisphere’s top inventors. As she settles into her new role—and allows herself to dream of what opportunities it might bring to a second-class citizen like herself—she’s devastated to learn that her older brother who abandoned her years before is the prime suspect in a political assassination. Sweetmint decides to find him.

Sci-fi is not my usual genre. When I decide to dabble in it, I typically keep it confined to movies or, if I venture into new literary realms, novels that still feel rooted in reality. When I heard Askaripour’s latest was set centuries in the future and involved complex world-building, I was intrigued but a little wary. After all, BLACK BUCK was a modern-day workplace romp.

After finishing this one, I realized it’s not so far off from BLACK BUCK. They both are ambitious novels packed with social commentary that use unique storytelling formats. While I don’t think I loved this one quite as much as BB, it made me think deeply about the way people are “othered,” or viewed differently in society.

The writing zips along and the world-building feels cinematic (and made me want to rewatch THE HUNGER GAMES). This feels like it’s meant for the screen. Sweetmint is compelling and easy to root for, and the novel is mostly easy to follow. There were a few periods where I think this got bogged down in the details and some sections that did require a close read so I could get a handle on what was going on, but all in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Honestly? It always pays to get out of your comfort zone.

I loved Black Buck, by Mateo Askaripour. Askaripour’s sophomore novel is expansive and thought-provoking! I can’t wait to see what he writes next. Both books are different, yet their themes are similar.

This Great Hemisphere is a vast story. I love a 500-year time jump, surprisingly not the only book I’ve read with a giant immediate time jump. A race of invisible people, subjugated to a lower class of people. It’s too close to real life to be pure sci-fi. This book has politics, coups, heroes, and villains. The politics of the world is well established and the hints at the world outside the Hemisphere were compelling. I love worldbuilding and Askaripour’s is deft.

Sweetmint is an excellent anchor to the book. I was completely invested in her journey.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but the last 25% is excellent and really made me appreciate the whole story more. There were so many scenes that stuck out and I can’t get out of my head. They are striking and lovely.

Askaripour is an auto read author for me. Can’t wait to see what he conquers next.

I really enjoyed Askaripour's writing in Black Buck as it was fresh, sharp and thrilling in it's satirical commentary on human behavior. This Great Hemisphere is of course a whole new genre, a speculative dystopian set in the 2500's, but it still had this thrilling style to the writing that kept me super intrigued of this world in which the minority race is invisible people. They are segregated in society into different forests & every movement is controlled by the '"DP's", or the Dominate Population. Abuses of power abound as The Invisibles submit & try to live their lives in the wilderness. Evil masterminds plan "the great reset," so they can forever be in power.

There is found family, a revolution, and murder and manipulation from politicians left and right. There is a lot of mirroring our current political climate and foreshadowing of where that could bring us in the future. I absolutely loved the beginning, & about midway in thought it lagged a bit. The ending felt abrupt, & made me wonder if there will be a sequel in the future?

Even so, I could of stayed in this world forever. Overall, I really enjoyed the journey, & eagerly anticipate the author's future works.

I struggled with this one, but still appreciated it! The worldbuilding was intensive in every sense of the word, and I found it hard to keep up with at times (I think I may have experienced it differently with a paper copy, in which case I could have more easily navigated back and forth). I generally love dystopian fiction, but this felt heavily sci-fi, which is less in my comfort zone. All that said, I was curious about and invested in the story - it just felt more effortful to follow than I expected, and because of that I felt the pacing occasionally dragged. I'll still recommend we carry it in store as the concept is excellent and I expect it to resonate with readers more familiar with the genre! Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group/Dutton.

First, let me acknowledge that this is not my usual book. I’m not a huge Sci-fi reader even though I appreciate the genre and enjoy some elements.

So what I liked about this. I really liked the concept, that there are people who were born invisible and they’ve now become outcasts in society. I thought as Askaripour revealed things throughout the book they were all deserved, he did a great job of leaving breadcrumbs to certain twists that were coming. The pacing of the novel is really great too. The story is quick, the reveals happen in steady motion making me interested in what came next.

Unfortunately the story never really captivated me though. I felt like a lot of the politicians were interchangeable for a large chunk of the book, we never learned enough about the culture created in the Hemispheres which I would have found interesting.

Askaripour definitely leaves this open for a possible follow up if he chose to so there is that option and I would be interested in maybe checking that out.

I loved this author's debut novel, Black Buck, so I was super interested to read this one. Although I didn’t love it as much as his first (which lives rent free in my mind), I thought it was a very interesting story! I enjoyed how detailed it was and even though it is a dystopian novel, it still had a lot of social commentary and parallels to political and social issues of today and the past.

This is one of those books you have to piece together as you go. There is a murder mystery at the center and you're trying to figure it all out. I liked the world building and the characters. I did sometimes feel lost in the motivations of the characters and who I was supposed to be rooting for (which I think was intentional). I saw the big twist coming from pretty far away (at least 150 pages out). Overall this is a solid book but I do have some smaller nits to pick (pacing mostly). I saw so much growth for the author from their debut to this.

I loved this read! The world building was great and I loved unraveling new pieces of it throughout the entirety of the book. This cast is full of complicated characters, which are my favorite kind. The story seems made for a movie and the writing is so good that you can see scenes leap off the page. I didn't love the ending, but mostly because I wanted more! Highly recommend!

THIS GREAT HEMISPHERE by Mateo Askaripour is a dystopian novel that I wanted so much to like! In this futuristic world, the Northwestern Hemisphere is a vague, not-quite-theocratic, caste-based state, with the “Invisibles” (who are literally invisible) serving as the underclass while the DPs (Dominant Population) are the ruling caste. Unfortunately, all of the characters felt like caricatures to me. For example, there are DPs who think they’re the “good” DPs for caring about the Invisibles, but when push comes to shove, they show that they view Invisibles as dispensable. It’s all a bit pedantic, like how the food marketed to Invisibles is actually very unhealthy, and the worldbuilding wasn’t convincing to me: it just seemed like a duplicate of our own world with slight alterations. That being said, I can understand this working well for readers who would find this type of heavy-handed racial allegory cathartic and validating. Particularly, I’d recommend it to readers of THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER, N.K. Jemisin, and THE BLUEPRINT.