This book was not for me. I like the cover a lot but the story had me bored. Not the intended audience for this

This short book really felt like two different books to me, or something like it. The first part is an article written about a lockdown rave gone wrong where a man was hit over the head with a gold bar, and the investigation into how or why that all went down. The rest of the novel consists of narratives taking place after the publication of that article from the perspectives of some of the main players in the situation, including the author. This book is saying something about race and class in England for sure, but I really wanted this to be about the gold bar murder so maybe that was part of the point, that my interest as a reader is in the sensational and not the nitty gritty day to day disenfranchisement of the working class... if so, well played!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Random House Publishing Group, for giving me a free copy of this ebook in exchange for this honest review.

I wasn't expecting this to be such a page turner! The journal article sucked me right in and this was so unique and literary and page turning.

I had a hard time following Universality - there were some interesting aspects, and it was well written, but it really strayed from the plot as described and focused more on the journalistic aspects of the book. I would have liked to know more about the crime and follow up, but that almost seemed to be kind of a side note. I see lots of people liked it, but this one wasn't for me.

This is a short book but long on the issues it wants to tackle. It talks about race, society, the dumong down of the world and wokeism. It really packs a punch with the style of writing and making the reader squirm with the storylines that a lot of people have been part of and how we may look at tings differently after reading this book. You can read in one sitting but it's definetly not a quick read. You'll want to savor some of the writing and go deeper with author's thoughts. I really enjoyed this book. Thanks to #randomhouse and #netgalley for the read.

Although I was drawn to the plot of Universality, overall the book did not work for me. The pacing was not able to keep my attention throughout the entirety of the story and I was not able to connect with any of the characters.

Thank you to Random House for the copy! I wanted to enjoy this so badly. Natasha Brown is clearly talented with her stylistic subtlety, but unfortunately I just couldn't get past the jumbled narration and forgettable characters.

Universality introduces its plot with a news article of a man bludgeoned via gold bar. There's a commune filled with contrarians who are all bark and no bite, and this alone would be an excitable premise to explore further. But the scope of the novel only widens into ambiguity and disarray as it follows three other characters, each with their own ties to the story. The majority of the novel seems to descend into an echo chamber of the same critiques on classism and performative activism.

I'm thinking of revisiting this at another time, but maybe this just wasn't for me?

3/5 stars

This is my first book by Natasha Brown and I read it for a book club.

I went into this book blind and I was pretty confused for a good portion of the book. I did like how much she packed into this 180 page book and how thought provoking it was. Some parts went over my head and I'm glad I listened to it on audio or I would've had a harder time sticking with it.

I've seen amazing things about Natasha Brown's other book Assembly so I am excited to pick that one up.

Across all sections of this book, Natasha Brown gives readers numerous opportunities to identify with the characters she creates. Written from a perspective of victimization, you navigate topics like sexism, classism, racism - a lot of the '-isms.

Overall, this book is okay and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but it would make for a good book club discussion.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 The concept of this book was one that intrigued me. I love a book that plays with form as a way to expand the function of a book, so having the first long chapter be written as an article and then having the following chapters be exploring the impact of that article on the people involved is a great idea. I think that this book was hurt by having mixed messaging. I could not truly tell what the book itself was trying to tell me. I knew what some of the characters thought and felt but not how the book wanted me to feel about it. Usually this does not impact me but I truly was not sure what I was supposed to take away from the book. I did enjoy the writing style outside of the article chapter (the article chapter felt intentionally underwritten).

The premise of this novel is an interesting one (a journalist trying to uncover the truth about a young man’s being bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar during an illegal rave on a Yorkshire farm), and the writing throughout is quite good. Yet, this novel sort of fell flat for me. I had a hard time relating to any of the characters, and the three distinct parts of the novel seemed to be pretty disjointed. Although it is a very short novel, I found myself losing focus from time to time as I plodded through it. All in all, I thought this was an interesting read, one that I am glad that I undertook, but disappointing to me nonetheless.

Anybody get through this one without wanting to hit ALL of the characters over the head with a gold bar?

I’m kidding of course, but this is a tough hang despite showcasing good writing and being an exceptionally quick read.

I like Brown’s snappy prose and I get what she was trying to do here, but I’ll echo other reviewers thoughts that despite being technically relevant this also feels pretty outdated, and it sacrifices what could have been an interesting and message-driven plot in favor of a lot of ranting and absurdist caricature that will never be witnessed by the people who need to witness it because, um, those people don’t read this type of fiction, if they even read at all.

The plolessness of the book is probably its biggest downfall, mostly because it starts in a fairly linear manner and then devolves into what I would mostly describe as riffing by select members of a satirical Greek chorus. It’s all tell and no show, and that feels at odds with the high-handedness of the message, however valid that message is.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House, and Natasha Brown for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set during Covid, Natasha Brown’s Universality begins with an expose style news article about a murder at a mansion in the British countryside. A young man is struck in the head with a gold bar during an illegal rave. A journalist launches an investigation and introduces the reader to the rich banker who owned the mansion, a divisive female columnist seeking notoriety, and an anarchist movement, The Universalists.

Summaries and reviews of Universality position it as a novel about the power of words and media bias. I didn’t find that in Brown’s short novel. The expose that opened the novel and the story of the rich owner of the mansion were compelling. The details about the columnists and the Universalists, as well as the intricate connections between characters, were less compelling. For me, Universality was a quick but uneven read.

Readers who enjoy social criticism, especially about wealth and social stratification, will enjoy Brown’s Universality.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an advance readers copy of this book.

While I appreciated the structure of this novel, I found the content disappointing. It is put together like a set of puzzles: often with little or no transition, pieces (characters, scenes) are picked up, studied, and then placed to form a picture. Pieces of the first puzzle appear in the second story, and are built upon, and so on. I found this intriguing.

However, these are not pretty pictures. Introduced in the first chapter/story as interesting, if not admirable, characters, the subsequent chapters focus on the people as vehicles for a set of polemical arguments for and against capitalism, genetic determinism, classism vs. racism, and other economic arguments. The characters are flat and unlikeable, more like talking ideas than people, and not very appealing ones. With one exception, Hannah, the journalist around whose article the book revolves, almost all are arrogant and self-centered, exploitative, and obsessed with success and recognition. There is no empathy for or even attention to others.

Set during and after the 2020 Pandemic lockdown, this seemed like an excellent chance to look at individuals and relationships as they grappled with isolation and meaning in their work. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Thank you @randomhouse for the eARC! Universality started off really interesting with a journalist looking into a near death experience at a rave. I appreciated the style of writing, which felt quick and engaging, but the quickly lost interest in the middle. Somehow I felt simultaneously invested in the real life nature with the descriptions of the pandemic and life in 2020 and turned off by it. I’m glad I gave it a go, but it wasn’t my favorite genre.

i love natasha brown, and assembly remains one of the most impressive. novellas i've ever read, but this book didn't have the same magic for me. while short, it felt extremely specific. there were moments i really enjoyed, but the biggest pro and the biggest con of this for me were how realistic it felt! it didn't come together in the way fiction can, but all of it felt astonishingly real.

I was a big fan of Assembly, which was fresh, smart and surprising in all the good ways.

This one was a bit less convincing. It somehow manages to be simultaneously topical and outdated. It cares about all the right things people in London should care about, but in a somewhat predictable way.

It also creates an expectation at the start that it subsequently refuses to fulfill. It starts out as a plot-based novel, with a journalist investigating the disappearance of a solid gold bar after an illegal rave, but then does not follow up and morphs into something more like a pamphlet.

I wanted a good story, but this is a book you should read when you are in the mood for caring about the right things.

That being said, writing a second novel that is very different from a first, makes Natasha Brown an even more interesting writer and I will certainly read whatever comes next.

Natasha Brown is so adept with language, and this sharp novel is a real delight to read. It's clear that this book is commenting on issues of class, society, and media; as an American, I can certainly recognize some similarities, but at times I felt that I wasn't quite making the exact connections I was meant to. It's full of big ideas, but I think they could have been developed more deeply. The ending felt a bit abrupt and I would've liked a little more wrapping up.

Many a writing class teaches would be authors that the words we use and the emphasis we place on those words change the story in dramatic ways. UNIVERSALITY uses this premise to tell the story of a disagreement that comes to violence. It's an excellent example of how the news media can skew the public opinion with an op ed piece. The story as told is almost mundane, except the victim is beaten with a bar of gold, the participants brought together in a place where they shouldn't have been during a time when large crowds were discouraged. The consequences faced by each of them varies based on the reactions of the readers, proving the concept while demonstrating the principle. This was an interesting story that is almost scary in the ease with which it happens on an everyday basis.

A man is clobbered with a gold bar at an illegal rave at a farm during the covid lock down. He may be a cult leader, the cult, excuse me, anarchist group, may be squatting on the property, and the owner (rich banker guy) wants his gold bar back. What a kick off.

Universality contains five sections, and the longest, "A Fool's Gold" is framed as a magazine article detailing the assault, profiling the rich guy, and exploring the "Universalists".

Other sections give us more perspective on the article's provenance and its author, the fallout with the rich guy, and a controversial columnist who seems to influence the proceedings (not to mention thoughts and opinions).

Very talky, very heady. Interesting threads from the first section remained loose - Pegasus, the cult leader, and the Universalists could have filled a whole book. The dry delivery of the article highlighted the group's ineptitude (they weren't arrested for growing cannabis because "police determined that the cannabis plants at the farm did not meet the 0.3 percent THC threshold to be legally classified as marijuana"). Hilarious stuff.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the digital ARC. (pub date 3/4/2025)

Universality is everything and more of what I expected from Natasha Brown’s second novel. After brilliant debut Assembly, Brown ventures deeper into complicated and maybe even uncomfortable subjects, dissecting our current cultural and political landscapes. We start with a long journalistic piece about an incident surrounding a violent attack involving members of a squatters commune and a gold bar. We get introduced to an interesting cast of characters with a lot of questionable views, beliefs and backgrounds. Then we get several povs, including the author of the article and suddenly we find ourselves in unreliable narrator territory. It’s a fascinating shift as we might want to try to understand different character’s perspectives but ultimately discover their flaws, lies and motifs and it can be really uncomfortable at times. Universality is a book about classism, late stage capitalism, current media and the sneaky but also more obvious shift to right-wing politics and mindsets. Some of these subjects are quite obvious and pointed at with some sarcasm and irony and a lot of eyeroll-worthy moments. Others are much more subtle, between the lines, which is what I particularly find admirable in Natasha Brown’s writing. The book points fingers as some types of figures we know from media and politics but it also gently points some fingers at ourselves and our complicity with the absurd things happening around us and in our middle class (or middle class aspiring) surroundings.
Once again, Natasha Brown is here to blow our minds and I am looking forward to the legend she will become with writing this sharp and brilliant.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the eARC!