Julia

By: Sandra Newman

Narrated by: Louise Brealey

London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia. A diligent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League (though she is secretly promiscuous) she knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive.

But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department - a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith - when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note - a potentially suicidal gesture - she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.

Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.

©2023 Sandra Newman (P)2023 Sandra Newman

A flawed interpretation of a classic

Sandra Newman's retelling of 1984 from Julia's perspective is thrilling, harrowing and faithful to the source material. but the ending is rough and fails to understand the weight of the original ending.

Wow. Erie.

The connections and different pov. I got bored in the first third but then it picked up and wow. Unexpected and I’m just stunned and blinking over here lol

At first I thought it was going long…but, oh, that ending!

At first I thought it was going long…but, oh, that ending! Big Brother is …

Must-read for the most part

95% of this book is must read if you're a big fan of 1984. Not a full five stars because of the ending. 1984 has one of the most deeply terrifying endings in book history. Julia does not. Julia just kind of keeps going and takes too many liberties with the original story. It would've been five stars if they got rid of the last chapter and ended at the same time 1984 did. That would've been a much stronger ending.

magnificent

I can't believe I'm writing this, but this was better than 1984, a book that I revere. And the narrator was one of the best I've listened to. She deserves an award for this performance.