Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and the publishers for this book in exchange for my honest review.
This book was my favorite five star read for February 2025. I think the author did a fabulous job of showing multiple POV’s, the sci-fi feature was done quite well, and the thrill factor was uber creepy. I could see myself wanting to experience “Unworld” myself.

I think "UnWorld" would have resonated more with me as a short story. The slow narrative and characters didn't develop enough to make a lasting impact. The intricate plot made it hard to follow any single thread, and ultimately, not much stood out to me from the story. That being said, there are some beautifully written chapters in this novel.

UnWorld is a virtual reality game in a world in which everyone has an AI chip in their brains that records their memories, but the chips are achieving sentience as the world navigates their emerging civil rights issues.

The book uses Aviva, the chip, as the central character, while dancing between various points of view, including Anna and Rick, who are grieving the loss of their teenage son, who took his own life.

This book had some interesting things to say about personhood, technology and grief, and it did a decent job at building dread, but it felt like it should have been a short story. It didn't have enough of a plot. And I found the characters so unlikable, for example Rick and Anna's unhappy marriage, that I found it hard to stay interested in the story.

We seem to be having a proliferation of AI stories now but they are almost too close to our current reality for me to get into a lot of them, rather than saying anything new and unexpected. This seems to have been inspired by Elon Musk's plan for brain chips.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

UnWorld is a trippy mix of grief, memory, and AI, set in a near-future where the lines between human and machine get super blurry. The concept is wild and definitely makes you think, especially about identity and loss. But the abstract style made it a little hard to fully connect with the characters—it felt more distant than emotional at times. Still, it’s a unique, brain-bending read if you’re into reflective, futuristic fiction.

I loved the premise of this book- an upload of yourself in your consciousness. This is not an idea I’ve come across yet in the sci-fi genre but that could just be me. How successful was the author in getting his idea across?
The story is split between 4 different groups: Sam’s family whom we don’t spend much time with, Anna and husband Rick, Alex’s parents, Catherine, Alex and Aviva- Anna’s “upload, with Sam.

The main point of the story is Alex’s death and the effects of his death on all of the remaining characters, including Aviva, Anna’s upload.
The upload idea is unique to me and was well defined! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

This book is about grief and loss and how a mother faces such grief and loss in the world of AI. As a mother myself, I can't imagine losing my kid before my own time has come and I was hoping for this to hit a bit harder than it actually did. This book touches on the philosophy of the human experience but almost lacks direction. It's a bit ambiguous and attempts to feel intellectual without it just flowing naturally. There were many unanswered questions. However, the writing itself was well done.

This book had an amazing premise but the actual experience of reading it just missed the mark for me. It was hard to relate to or connect with any of the characters and the story itself was very slow moving. I had to force myself to keep reading, it just didn't hook or engage me. Might be enjoyed by those who really like abstract plots and writing. 2/5 for me.

The UnWorld is a futuristic look at a world run by AI, including the ability to upload one's self for friendship and assistance. There are moral questions that arise regarding what constitutes personhood. This book explores morality, motherhood, relationships, humanity, loss, and a host of complex and thought-provoking subjects and ideas regarding the human condition. Very well done, and I highly recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

While the concept for this book was a conceptually ambitious attempt at an exploration of grief, the human condition, and technology—there was too much going on for the point to hit home or be as impactful as it could have been. It got a lost in it's own web of ruminations.

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this ARC!

This was a pretty good book! I do think it had a bit too much going on, and that if they took some layers out it would be more enjoyable and easier to follow as a book. I think they need to just simplify it a bit, but other than that it was great, and kept me entertained!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Unlike most emerging science fiction centering on the apocalyptic realities of near future technocapitalism, Greene does not turn outward in his exploration in Unworld. Instead of worldbuilding in great depth and describing the technological possibilities of AI expanded worlds inside worlds, Greene turns inward exploring the interiority of his characters – both human and AI – and their relationships in an only moderately more advanced imagining of our world. If you’re looking for a sci-fi book in which the technology itself is expounded upon so much it might as well be a pseudo character, look for another book (I know this is a bit ironic considering Greene actually does have a character that is AI)… but what I mean is this book is about a handful of characters, their relationships, their feelings, their experiences and their connections. It is not a traditional sci-fi. It reminded me of Harpmen’s I Who Have Never Known Men, as it was much more speculative fiction than anything else.

In a time when more boys are suffering from depression and anxiety and turning to the digital world rather than the real one, the central plot line of this book felt acutely alarming. I found some of the relationships and characters in the book to feel real and believable, like Anna and Alex (mother and son). However, other characters' interiorities, particularly Cathy’s and Aviva’s, felt flat. Also not sure how to feel about such extreme anthropomorphizing of AI – and though the book does cover some of these ethical questions and grey areas through discussion of them in a contrived college seminar setting, I was left unconvinced that the characterization of the AI made much sense.

Overall, it was a book that succeeded in provoking thought about how AI will impact human connection on a much more intimate, smaller scale than other books on the topic. Unworld has a fresh and novel perspective to offer, even if not all its experimental components jive together at times.

There was so much going for this book. It's curious and intellectual about the topic of AI, asking us to think deeply about what makes humans human. Can AI ever become human? Is human affectation truly irreplicable? Can fact-checking "uploads" ever come close to unburdening us of the weight of memory? Though conceptually engaging, the book got lost in its own web of ruminations. I almost wish the plot focused on a single narrative voice, Sam or Aviva perhaps, to buttress us to the novel's most foundational ideas of death, anxiety, connection, and ennui. It would have been more rewarding if we had gotten a chance to see the fullness of either one of their private worlds rather than try to balance the four unequal (and often repetitive) perspectives we got. The ending, as a result, seemed to deflate rather than bloom.

This is a little slow moving, but a beautiful concept-a series of interconnected stories that examine the humanity of AI. While some of the tales were more compelling than others (and some questions are unanswered), there is a solid through-line that made for a lovely story.

This is the softest sci-fi ever. For the majority of the book we follow humans as they grapple with loss. But we also learn how loss might effect an AI. Since we humans must process our pain against the inundation of thousands of stimuli (necessitating that it be compartmentalized) an AI would have no such filters and might be more traumatized. As the book eloquently notes, "a mind was eternal, unforgiving; a brain was a soft, plump cushion. Loss needed a brain." Without one, loss to an AI is pure suffering.

Fundamentally, this was an intriguing premise for me personally to explore, I loved watching this careful study of how one act reverberates throughout different states of consciousness, different types of people. If you're looking for closer examination of how this AI came to be and the specifics of how it works--keep looking. This is a book about emotions, not about wiring. And I was A-Ok with that.

Trigger warning. This was written by an author who has lost a child and deals with the loss a child. It shows in the writing, which captures grief immaculately in all its many forms. It's gut wrenching to read as a parent. If you're a parent who has lost a child it might be too much.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I found this story was an ambitious attempt to explore both grief and technology, using AI uploads.
This is all told by four different narrators grappling with a teen’s tragic death.

The premise really hooked me at first, but as I kept reading, I found the story started to feel a bit scattered, and also the characters seemed more like abstract ideas rather than real, relatable people.

Instead of delivering a smooth, emotionally engaging narrative, the book came off as a bit showcasey with ideas that never quite came together.

While I was really excited by the clever idea behind it, I kinda wished it had been bit more cohesive and down-to-earth.

Thank you so much to NetGalley & Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor

Conceptually, I think this book is interesting but the execution fell a little flat for me. While there are parts of this book that I found interesting and thought provoking, the writing style was not my favorite. I am very interested in AI and what our future with AI looks like so whenever I see a book like this come along, I am excited to give it a read. This one was just ok for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars.

I finished the book about 5 hours ago, and I still am not quite sure what I feel about it. While reading, I constantly felt like I was missing something, not totally grasping the concept of a sentient AI tethered to a host. As the story continued, things got a little clearer and more in focus for me. By the end of the book, I was sad, mostly sad that it was over.

This was interesting, made me think, and forced me to consider ideas that I'd never thought about before. I think some folks will eat this up, and others won't want to work that hard to keep up.

Would I read more from the author? Yes.

I received a complimentary copy of the novel from the publisher and NetGalley, and my review is being left freely.

While the premise was nice, the writing was... not what I expected. I wanted more from the characters because I felt that what was on the front cover and the front flap was not what we were given.

This was a somewhat dreamy, somewhat ethereal, and mostly melancholic exploration of implanted AI (one in particular) and the effects on those around them. The structure of the book was that each chapter provides the perspective of a different person connected to the AI Implant, Aviva, but sometimes this led to the novel itself being more disjointed and difficult to pick up the thread of the plot line. Ultimately, while it was about this very real emerging technology (see Starlink, yikes), it was also about mental health and social connection, especially Alex's struggles with anxiety and his death by suicide. Apart from those specifics, the book gave me the overall feeling of "After Yang" the movie, which was melancholic but beautiful.

Thanks to Netgalleyfor the ARC! With AI such a right now topic, I was sucked in by the premise for this book. There are self-driving cars and “uploads,” which are like AI chip beings people can purchase and have help make their lives easier. I’m not completely sure I understand how they work, but I could see this being a real thing in the future. Anna has an upload named Aviva by her son that actually some how leaves her and finds another person, Cathy, who has been waiting for a free upload to discover her. This part of the story alone really interested me but also confused me as the way it was all happening wasn’t really clear. Then add to that Anna and Rick’s son Alex inexplicably falling to his death in front of his best friend Sam. No one seems to know if he fell or jumped, but Aviva has asked to remove herself from Anna shortly after. Everyone is grieving, and it all seems to venter around the rights and involvement of uploads. While the AI aspect and characters in here were interesting (i could truly picture Alex and grieve for him because i have known kids in my teaching career who were similar), I felt the story fell a little short as there were too many questions left unanswered and too many blurry areas of how all this AI and uploading stuff works. Overall, it was an interesting read, but I’d rather read it once it has been workshopped more to fill up the gray and empty areas FYI some profanity, talk of drug use and alcohol use/addiction in adults and teens, some sexual references (that seemed oddly timed and no necessarily needed)

I will read anything this author writes. The story is ok, perhaps a little forgettable. It takes place in the near enough future where AI has taken over most things and people are able to have “uploads” of themselves that act as assistants, friends, and wider observers. There’s a debate within the book about if these uploads are in their own right individuals, as they are able to feel “pain” and loss and confusion. On the surface, this is the central theme of the book. Deeper, though, this book is more about motherhood/parenting and the person we are on the outside vs the person on the inside. In other words, it’s about AI but it’s not.

There’s isn’t much world building. The story is very much to the point. It’s definitely more speculative fiction than scifi, with a few mentions of self driving cars (which our main character has chosen to reject.) Other than the AI Upload voice coming from nowhere, this isn’t the world of the Jetsons, although there aren’t enough descriptions to picture anything other than regular suburbia. In fact, the author seems to like to leave things unsaid. The first good chunk of the book is purposely vague (which I’ve come to appreciate) and there’s little hand holding.

It’s an interesting story for anyone that has dealt with sudden loss, I suppose. But it’s definitely not a story that feels like a warning about where AI is headed or some sense we’ll all soon be losing our humanity. In many ways it could have almost worked without the scifi aspect to it. It’s a novel about a short period in the lives of a few people affected by a major event that leaves them all a little confused and very empty. It could have been longer, but it’s not.

Above all, though, the writing is the smoothest I’ve ever read. It’s not simple or flowery. I can’t even quite put my finger on it. I just immediately dove into it and the pages flew by. I’ve never quite been struck by writing that is so easy to digest before. It makes no sense but I kept saying “If this author wrote the phone book I could read it all afternoon.”

Jayson Greene needs to write more fiction and immediately let me know when they do. I can only imagine what’s next will be just as enjoyable to read and perhaps offer even deeper of a story.