Reviews with content warning for Vomit - The Free People's Village

I pre-ordered this book after searching up "solarpunk" on TikTok and coming across Sim Kern's page. It quickly became one of my favorite pages on that godforsaken app and when I saw that they were publishing a book, I knew I had to pre-order it immediately. When it came, I was still in the midst of finishing up other books (which I have yet to write reviews on, oops. I feel super behind. Oh well.) but something drew me to it on Friday and I slipped it into my bag to read while I was out. Perhaps it was because of everything that has been going on in the world. I felt that I needed a bit of hope, fictional or otherwise.

Let me say: I have not sat in a cafe reading for so long in my entire life. I read the first half entirely in one sitting.

The novel centers on a greenwashed solarpunk alternate universe in which Al Gore won the presidential election and declared a War on Climate Change instead of a War on Terror. This has led to a society that has been built with the intentions of creating a more environmentally friendly society. However, it soon becomes clear that the entire thing is one big greenwashing ruse. Our narrator, a young white woman named Maddie Ryan, soon realizes that without fixing the deep rooted problems of racism, classism, and capitalism, the "environmentally friendly" society will be nothing but a greenwashed facade built to protect the capitalist endeavors of the ruling white upper class.

In their novel, Sim Kern has masterfully navigated themes of racial injustice, intersectionality, and activism in what seems to be a hopelessly bleak capitalist country. How can we have any sort of hope when we are up against a seemingly all powerful government? How can we have a voice when every shout feels like it's being swallowed up by the void? We do it slowly and consistently. As Shayna says towards the end, "we grow our network--we spread our mycelium, we strengthen our community." Change must start from the ground up. To make a change outside, we need to start by making a change in our own communities.

I would encourage anyone and everyone to read The Free People's Village. I feel that, especially in the current geopolitical climate, the message needs to be spread far and wide.

(Also, I have added all of Gestas's books to my TBR. I encourage you all to do the same.)

Content Warnings

anxiousutopian's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Content Warnings

aeons_v_atlas's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

caseythereader's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Thanks to Levine Querido for the free copy of this book.

- THE FREE PEOPLE'S VILLAGE is unlike any book I've ever read before. I never thought a book about the internal struggles of a group of activists would rivet me, but I absolutely could not put this down.
- This book is entirely from the POV of Maddie, a young white woman joining a Black-led movement to preserve a Black neighborhood. She doesn't always handle new information and situations perfectly (or even well), and she eventually has to reckon with her place in the movement and take accountability for actions she does or does not take. I think Kern struck the right balance here - Maddie is not a white savior, but she is given space to catch up on the history and politics she does not know (and even then, she is reprimanded for never bothering to learn these things!)
- Looking at this book from a wider perspective, I appreciated how Kern took the fork in the road that we often romanticize - Gore winning the 2000 election - and showed how even if there was massive movement on the climate, our society would still find a way to use those changes to enrich white people and push out poor and BIPOC people. Honestly, this book is one to give to white liberals who you wish would consider leftist ideas.

Content Warnings

ebook_em's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful informative tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The Free People’s Village is a heavy, immersive read that made me feel equal parts anger, sadness, pride, hope, and cringe. I get the sense that evoking each of those feelings was intentional.

The plot unfolds in an alternate timeline in which Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election and declared a “War on Climate Change.” As a policy researcher, I was so impressed by how Sim Kern revealed what can go wrong in the implementation of liberal policies — like rich people abusing the carbon tax system and greenwashing galore — and how the Democratic platform on climate change is totally insufficient to tackle environmental racism and imperialism. In fact, this story shows how the “war” on climate change could be weaponized in very conventional ways against people of the global majority. The fact that climate policies in this story were used to further expand the scope of policing also felt chillingly realistic.

The coalition of organizations, activists, homeless folks, and others who made up the Free People’s Village seemed very real as well. I loved Kern’s depiction of the boring and mundane aspects of organizing (figuring out how often to empty the port-a-potties is something I’ve had to do and didn’t care to remember, lol) plus the circular, mind-numbing infighting that is inevitable in any long-term organizing effort. Around the middle of the story, there’s an inciting incident when the movement fractures into very different tactics — the secrecy, guilt, and political questions around this incident were really compelling.

I also appreciated the treatment of SA in this book. Rape culture and flimsy restorative justice responses to violence within activist spaces are way more typical than many organizers want to acknowledge. Not including some mention of sexual violence in an encampment setting would’ve felt like a major omission, but it didn’t feel perfunctory as a plot line either. All these examples highlight Kern’s explorations of power dynamics throughout the book: between landlords and tenants, cops and citizens, people with criminal records and those without, Black & Indigenous organizers and white voyeurs, cis and trans people, etc. The depiction of the technologies and media also seemed true to life; in many ways, this book felt like a fiction analog to Zeynep Tufekci’s “Twitter and Tear Gas.”

Now for the aspects that will be unappealing to some readers. The first-person POV of the white main character, Maddie, is cringeworthy more often than not. The cringe factor is intentional, as Maddie is a young white teacher and baby activist entering Black-led organizing spaces for the first time, and she messes up a lot in the process. I thought the author did a pretty good job of not making this a white savior story, though there were times Maddie could’ve taken more ownership of her actions without endless coaching from Black and brown people. Maddie participates in some actions but repeatedly chickens out and mostly does grunt work while her friends and bandmates do the more high-profile leadership work. Even though her inner thoughts are painful to read, I think her perspective will resonate with people. Some readers might also be turned off by the didactic tone of the book. Personally, I don’t mind heavy-handed social commentary in fiction and thought it made sense to learn fundamental theories and principles through Maddie’s naive POV.

Overall, this was a great read that left me with a lot to think about. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy.

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