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.

Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Group/Dutton for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is a speculative novel where we follow Sweetmint, an invisible and second-class citizen who has done everything right in life. She has just obtained a prestigious apprenticeship with an important inventor, a non-invisible who belongs to the powerful ruling class. Yet, she is looking for her brother who disappeared years ago and has recently been accused of murdering a high profile politician. The accusation does not seem right to Sweetmint and she will use her new position to find out the truth. The world building was interesting but the story didn't really click with me until maybe the last third or fourth of the book when it comes together. Of course, things are never as they seem and the story was much more interesting at the end, including commentary on society and those relegated to a second class. Overall, it was a good read but I enjoyed the author's first book more.

First thank you to Dutton books and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨. 3.75 stars

Synopsis: set in the future in a world where a group of citizens are considered second class and literally invisible to others. Sweetmint worked hard and starts a prestigious internship. However her long lost brother is accused of murder of an official. She doesn’t believe it but is she right?

What I liked: this book was beautifully written and deals with the hard and heavy topics that Mateo does not shy away from. I understand after the success of black buck that he wanted to try something different. I do have to admit I was hoping for a satirical novel like black buck. This novel is great as well and the effort it took to create the world and characters is amazing. I did enjoy it and the writing is beautiful. I just had my heart set on a black buck satire.

I barely even know what to say about this book besides that it's absolutely stunning. I saw this author speak at a book festival a couple months ago and immediately knew I needed to check out this new release and I'm so, so glad I did.

The writing is some of the most beautiful and emotive writing I've experienced. The author takes us on this grand journey with tons of dynamic characters and a plot chockful of political scheming and class warfare and observations on autonomy and so much more, yet he manages to make this read so smooth and approachable. What could easily be confusing or overwhelming, never is - not even once.

The structure of the book helps it read so cleanly. We experience everything through shorter chapters that capture one character's moment in time. We jump between characters and settings fairly frequently, so the pace moves along quickly and every detail is taken in bit by bit. It almost feels like watching a movie at times.

This story is heavy and thought-provoking and I know it will be on my mind for a long time to come.

Once again begging for the ability to rate half stars like StoryGraph. A strong 4.5 stars. Highly recommend.

Thanks to Dutton and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for review.

I picked up This Great Hemisphere because I enjoyed Mateo Askaripour's debut despite not normally reading speculative fiction. And I struggled to keep up with the world building, which made it hard for me to get into the book. I could feel that this book was clever and had something to say, but I didn't always get it.

This novel is set in a future dystopian world 500 years from now. The world is divided into Hemispheres instead of continents. The Northwestern Hemisphere (probably the future USA) where the story is based is populated by Invisibles and the Dominant Population. The invisibles are literally invisible unless they paint themselves and seem to be a synonym for Blacks of today. They are mostly domestics or engaged in menial jobs with virtually no civil rights. When the seemingly autocratic leader of this dystopian world is assassinated, an Invisible name Shanu or Sweetsmoke is accused of the crime. His sister Candance or Sweetmint is the main protagonist. She is an intellectual genius and trying to work her way up in life when this event happens on a coveted apprenticeship with one of the renowned Hemisphere DPs called the Creator. Initially there is a lot of world building and a lot of narrative about the rules and structure of the society, and descriptions of how the Invisibles are exploited on the basis of race and class. Thereafter, once the murder takes place the story takes a lot of twists and turns. Personally, I found the book too long in the beginning with a too quick and abrupt ending. I did not find any of the characters particularly likeable and that is always a big put-off. The police brutalities were difficult to read albeit a striking resemblance to some present-day events. There were shades of Young Adult writing to the narrative. I guess this would be suitable for those with a liking for books like the Hunger games - dystopian future with some grit and gore.
Thank you Dutton Books and Netgalley for the ARC

This sophomore novel is yet again fun and inventive and has such vivid voices. I find myself drawn into the characters and really attuned to the pace of this story.

This is speculative fiction set 500 years from now. Askaripour does a great job with world-building. This wasn't the right book for me but I am sure many will enjoy it.

I wanted to love this book so much after hearing a rave review from a friend. Sadly, this one just did not do it for me. I kept trying but at 33% I finally gave it up.

Delighted to include this title in the July edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

With This Great Hemisphere, Mateo Askaripour takes advantage of fantasy's ability to make the familiar strange in order to underscore the unmitigated horror of the United States' colonial and racist history. The novel takes place in a world where a portion of the population--coded Black--is invisible, and in turn violently subjugated by the Dominant Population. As in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the details of this world are deeply unsettling in large part because of their veracity: Invisibles work menial jobs, receive an inferior education, and are subject to the kind of persistent, creative physical and sexual violence that would feel cartoonishly grotesque if not for the echoes of slavery. Sweetmint, the protagonist, is an Invisible young woman whose efforts to navigate this inequality are complicated by her brother's implication in an political assassination. As she learns more about the history of the place she inhabits, she becomes increasingly radical in her thinking and actions. One strength of the novel is its depiction of resistance: both the individual resistance that keeps people sane amidst daily indignities and the collective resistance that offers hope for a better future. The world that Askaripour has created in This Great Hemisphere is as imaginatively wrought and vividly realized as a fantasy lover could ask for, and it continues to haunt me days after I finished the novel.

While I found the novel's world-building incredibly compelling, I was less taken by the novel's central mystery. Sweetmint is, understandably, desperate to find her brother before anyone else does, but her path toward learning the truth about his disappearance is uncomfortably dependent on good luck, especially in a world where any luck at all is almost impossible for Invisibles to access. The best mysteries earn their twists, but by the time I reached the big reveal at the end of the novel, I was already frustrated by the uneven emphasis on minor characters and the feeling that no one was quite behaving the way I expected them to. Be warned that This Great Hemisphere appears to be the first entry in a longer series; perhaps I would have been less thrown by the ending if I didn't expect at least some closure. Still, the novel's cutting ingenuity makes it worth reading, and I'm looking forward to the next entry!

A dystopian novel that, to be honest, I did not finish. The timeline was convoluted and I just found the set up to be tedious. I stuck with it for a bit, but didn’t engage with this one.

In the distant future, humans judge each other not by the color of the skin but by whether it's visible or not. Sweetmint is the rare Invisible allowed to do anything but manual labor. Her position as apprentice to a famous inventor probably saves her life when her long-missing brother Shanu assassinates the leader of the Northwestern Hemisphere. The official manhunt for Shanu, led by a politician and an officer who are awful in very different ways, leaves a trail of terror and carnage. Sweetmint's own search opens her eyes to the full iniquity of her society. An exquisitely detailed dystopia. Thanks, Netgalley.

A challenging read that turns a sharp eye on classism, racism and haves versus have nots. Sweetmint is searching for her brother in 2529- and know that the world building takes place over the course of the novel. There are many characters who often, like Sweetmint, have more than one name, which I found confusing but I was committed to understanding her quest. And they offer their POVs. Despite the setting, it's not especially sci-fi but it's definitely dystopian. I admit to getting lost about half way through, putting this down, and then coming back to it because I was intrigued by the story. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Won't be for everyone but it's a worthy read.

This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour was a great novel that has many elements of books I enjoy reading such as: speculative fiction, sci-fi, mystery and social issues. When I went into the book, I had this preconceived notion that there might be too much going on as it was billed to feature all these themes, but I think Askaripour did a great job making these elements all work together.

The story takes place a few hundred years into the future & the main character, Sweetmint or Candice (her state name) is invisible, just like the rest of her people. Yes,some people are invisible. The book starts out in the near future with the origins of invisible people. (If you ask me, the early days of invisible people would make a fascinating story, too.)

Sweetmint and the invisible class of people are disparaged and outright treated like garbage by the “Dominant Population” (or DP for short) who are visible people. If you bring this all back to “the real world,” The invisible people are treated just as BIPOC folks have been treated throughout time in the US. But, this book does not take place in the US, it takes place in some part of the word, hundreds of years in the future where the group of people in power still can’t get over oppressing those who are different because they somehow pose a threat to their power.

Over the course of this story, Sweetmint has the opportunity to see cracks in the system, learn more about how truly messed up it is, learns about herself, grows and discovers her own strength. All while her brother, who had been missing for years is accused of killing a high-ranking visible politician. This “mystery” part of the book is an entertaining ride and there are some interesting twists, that of course are made possible by science fiction (that makes it fun.)


I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys speculative fiction and/or stories of great multicultural interest. Even if you’re not too into sci-fi, I’d give this book a chance because the metaphors and parallels run deep. It’s a very well-written novel, has a fantastic pace and features a great plot.

What a powerful concept; I'm in awe of Askaripour's imagination and the world he built in these pages. This is a hard book and I had a hard time making myself pick it up, but I was glad each time I did. Though I will say I wish we could have spent more time in the near-present; the very first chapter may have been my favorite.