Hum

By: Helen Phillips

Narrated by: Ariel Blake

A Most Anticipated Book for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Goodreads, LitHub, and Book Riot
A Best Book of the Summer for Esquire, Electric Lit, and Town & Country
A People Book of the Week

From “one of our most profound writers of speculative fiction” (The New York Times), this “tense dystopian thriller” (Time) and “tender portrait of love and care in an uncertain world” (Esquire) is an urgent and unflinching portrayal of a woman’s fight for her family’s security in a world shaped by global warming and rapid technological progress.

In a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Desperate to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance.

Seeking reprieve from her recent hardships and her family’s addiction to their devices, May splurges on passes for her family to spend three nights respite in the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals still thrive. But when her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives to save her family.

Written with “precision, insight, sensitivity, and compassion” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Hum is a “striking new work of dystopian fiction” (Vogue) that delves into the complexities of marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and dizzying technological advancement, a world of both dystopian and utopian possibilities.

©2024 Helen Phillips (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Humming Anxiety

Portrays a vision of the future which looks familiar until it doesn’t. Imagine that the future of ai includes empathetic ambivalence.

Intriguing look into a speculative future

While the premise of this story was interesting the execution felt a little uneven. At times the story plot lacked direction leaving me wondering where the narrative was going. Despite this it was an interesting look into humanity potential future.

Good story, scary reality

This book had me-a-thinking that this could very well be our future. Scary that technology and AI takes over our lives. The need to disconnect backfires in sad reality. Well written and I love the sense of unexpected possibilities that May and may not happen. I would love to see a series in this universe.

Great readable book

Loved the idea of the book. I enjoyed where the book was going but the author seemed to lose focus towards the end. The ending left the reader hanging.

It’s like Black Mirror in Book format

It was performed well, though at times I found myself wondering if I would dislike the characters less if their voices were portrayed differently by the narrator.

I found the title character to make a shocking amount of stupid decisions for somebody who’s supposedly smart enough to code AI so well that she ends up putting herself out of a job. Often I thought to myself “this problem seems like it could be explained away enough with a bit of transparency toward the authorities” who are the unseen antagonists of the story.

Her children struck me as being spoiled brats, but perhaps that was the point. There are so many instances of them saying bratty things and behaving disrespectfully that evoke a non-response from their parents that I wondered what the point of writing them that way was. I could see why the author would do it if it eventually led the protagonist to snap, but it doesn’t.

The one thing that bothered me most about this story was the odd bit of telling commentary from the eponymous Hums which seems to suggest that they know their own role in turning the world into such a dystopian place. It’s never explained what spurns on those comments or how/why the Hums talk like that. I wish the author had gone somewhere with that.

Nada muy interesante

Es una historia familia, desde el punto de vista de la madre. Quizás algunos se sienten identificados pero no fue mi caso. Es una situación muy común y no deja una gran enseñanza. Desde el punto de vista de la ciencia ficción no cuenta nada muy creativo tampoco.

HUM

Descriptive. Too close to our possible future. Future AI and the scary use of facial recognition and lack of autonomy.

Disappointing

I was so looking forward to this book. I pre-ordered it and avidly awaited its arrival in my library.
As it turned out, the book was thoroughly disappointing. It was more a prolix short story than a novel.

Why Literary "Speculative Fiction" Doesn't Work

I've come to some conclusions about those who write "literary speculative fiction."
1. Perish the thought that they write "science fiction."
2. If everybody under the sun can't wait for the book to come out, avoid it.
3. There must be annoying children in the novel, which, if you don't have any, convince you never to have any of your own.
4. It's an excuse to not follow the standards of most genres: world building, character development, having a plot...
5. It's a reason to be vague and ambiguous (though the only thing I liked about this book was the last hour and the totally ambiguous ending--sometimes it works, but I suspect it will frustrate most people.
6. It's about the idea, which may or may not be clear, not the execution. This book had too many ideas, some more successfully executed than others.
7. Most writers can't pull it off. This is a good example.

The worse of the worse

I don’t know what anyone was thinking when recording this novel, it is a work of junk fiction. It is worthwhile of trash.