The Strangers

by Naomi Alderman

They had come from nowhere, and now they were everywhere

A few months after her mother dies, the novelist Naomi Alderman sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parents’ home. It captures the first image of a strange new animal. Low to the ground, about the size of a badger, flat face, long trunk-like nose. Suddenly these ‘mimmoths’ are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they’ve come from.

As Alderman negotiates the territory of grief – a place with its own logic and rhythms – the mimmoths spread. From the UK east and west, to the United States, to Russia, to India. They seem harmless, but oddly intelligent. They cannot be captured, they will not take food from humans, they have their own purposes.

Alderman cannot shake the feeling that she has a particular connection to the creatures. Or is she just succumbing to ‘mimmoth psychosis’? As the impact of the mimmoths increases, she is pulled into the cross currents of conspiracy theories and global power struggles. Have her deeply personal forms of mourning lent recent events a surreal air, or is our reality changing drastically and irrevocably?

From the award-winning author of the international bestseller, The Power, The Strangers is a thrillingly original and devastatingly moving novel that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, inviting us to reconsider what it means to be human. It’s like nothing you’ll have read before.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Literary Fiction, Grief, Adult

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 2026

About the author

Naomi Alderman (born 1974 in London) is a British author and novelist.

Alderman was educated at South Hampstead High School and Lincoln College, Oxford where she read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. She then went on to study creative writing at the University of East Anglia before becoming a novelist.
She was the lead writer for Perplex City, an Alternate reality game, at Mind Candy from 2004 through June, 2007.[1]
Her father is Geoffrey Alderman, an academic who has specialised in Anglo-Jewish history. She and her father were interviewed in The Sunday Times "Relative Values" feature on 11 February 2007.[2]

Her literary debut came in 2006 with Disobedience, a well-received (if controversial) novel about a rabbi's daughter from North London who becomes a lesbian, which won her the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers.
Since its publication in the United Kingdom, it has been issued in the USA, Germany, Israel, Holland, Poland and France and is due to be published in Italy, Hungary and Croatia.
She wrote the narrative for The Winter House, an online, interactive yet linear short story visualized by Jey Biddulph. The project was commissioned by Booktrust as part of the Story campaign, supported by Arts Council England. [3]

Reviews

[Emily May · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone knows the saying: Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
But it's not true. Some things don't kill you but just leave you permanently weaker.

It is absolutely essential that before reading this book you know it is autofiction that combines deeply personal memoir with a sci-fi concept. It is almost certainly going to be unpopular because it is very strange and doesn't fit with the expectations of either sci-fi or memoir. That being said, I thought it was a moving read— distressing at times, definitely, but only because of the author's raw honesty.

Between 2017 and 2023, Alderman was met with a series of devastations: COVID, like the rest of us, but also the death of her mother and back-to-back miscarriages for which no doctor could offer an explanation. “Unlucky” was how they described this shattering experience.

This book is an outpouring of grief for her mother, the complex relationship they had, and the many imagined children Alderman never got to meet. Some of it is expressed directly; other parts use a sci-fi metaphor to convey the author’s traumatic state of mind.

The sci-fi aspect involves the discovery of a new species of animal, first in Britain and then around the world. These animals— called mimmoths for looking like miniature mammoths —are docile, gentle creatures, kind to all who do not harm them. Then a discovery is made that the birth rate is dropping in places where mimmoths have been killed by humans.

The discovery of the mimmoths is blended so seamlessly with Alderman's own story and the very real events of COVID that I actually went to google to see if I had somehow missed a new species called mimmoths in Britain (certainly stranger things have happened these last few years). To all those as gullible as I— no, obviously the mimmoths are pure metaphor.

In many ways, they serve as a cultural critique of human behaviour. The metaphors are perhaps a bit heavy-handed, but the author's writing is strong and engaging enough for me not to care. Alderman's introspection covers more than her grief, and this is reflected in the mimmoth story line. As many who have been there know, grief often makes one take a step back and view the world, our culture, through a different lens. Suddenly so many things seem ridiculous; nothing at all seems fair.

There was some fantastic commentary on being a woman that I was going to quote but I honestly could not find a reasonable place to cut it— it kept growing and getting better for almost a page's length. I also found Alderman's honest depiction of her mother's faults to be powerful and devastating. It reminded me of Zauner's Crying in H Mart, as her relationship with her mother was not always easy either, and sometimes I think complex relationships cause the most severe kind of grief.

I am glad I read this book, but I will be surprised if it's widely-liked. The addition of the mimmoths offers something unique, though I think the book might have been more easily enjoyed without them.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I was in Mexico I had decided to limit my internet time, to focus on reading and on finishing my new book. I veered, as ever, between hope and despair with this book. It was the strangest thing I’d ever written, a cross between a novel and a memoir which gave me a kind of freedom with both forms. I had never produced anything so personal before, but the book emerged from me with a single-mindedness that frightened me. This seems to be how I am since my mother died. Less concerned with following anything but my own prompting.

In January 2017 I read the author’s fourth novel – the futuristic “The Power” and made 3 “near-future” predictions of my own, including that it would be a strong contender for the Women’s Prize shortlist (and even the prize) and that it would be ideal for an mini-series. The first came triumphantly true (even if the novel was massively underestimated by my fellow literary prize followers unable to look past the embedded use of genre and other media conventions by an author embedded in the world of science fiction and scriptwriting) followed later by an Amazon Prime miniseries.

I also enjoyed the author’s 2023 follow up – the near, slightly alternative, future novel. “The Future” which drew on the scriptural knowledge from her (own words) “unconventional Orthodox” Jewish family; her technology writing (in the early 2010s for the Guardian), her mentoring by Margaret Atwood, and her lead writing on the fitness app “Zombies, run” – again a deeply thoughtful and a thought provoking novel and one not necessarily to the taste of those unable to look past its embedded genre trappings.

And now (shortly after a rather brilliant project on her Substack where the author - inspired by her Zombie running app - is doing a Couch to 5K For Reading series) we have the author’s third novel – a deeply personal autofictional/memoir drawing on two painful losses but embedded within a strange current-world sci-fi genre.

It is set in the present day, and a few months after the main character, a novelist called Naomi Alderman, has lost her mother. To help her father a historian of British politics - note that so for all of these details are autobiographical – cope with the loss, she sets up a garden camera to capture nocturnal wildlife.

What instead it captures is a strange badger-sized, long trunked creature – on what proves to be the world’s first image (in fact called The Image on a Reddit thread) of a new mysterious animal – quickly dubbed “mimmoths” who spread first across the UK but which defy almost all attempts to capture them or to really understand their purposes, seeming to exist almost in parallel with humans.

This lack of real understanding naturally fuels a series of conspiracy theories and Alderman has a lot of fun satirising the polarised views taken by different political and ethical groupings on the animals, their level of threat to humans and what actions can be taken as well as the posturing of populist politicians. I think a lot of this is drawn from her research for her 2025 non-fiction “Don’t Burn Anyone At The Stake” a historical perspective on how to live through our current information crisis. However as someone who for years read, for political balance “The Spectator” and “The New Statesman” only to find, particularly with the columnists that it at times instead meant I was exposed to two sets of extremists, it reminded me of my bafflement that the extremism could often apply to nature – by famous (and here very apposite example) being the amount of column inches devoted in each publication to extreme (and diametrically opposed) views on badger-culling.

Along side this though we have the character (and author’s) own internal struggles with loss which play out at the same time as her outward career goes from strength to strength.

With her mother this involves a painful accounting for their conflicted relationship, one going right back to a difficult birth and which often centred around her mother’s obsession with the daughter’s weight from an inappropriately young age and all the repercussions that caused, including how it circumstantially became convoluted with her religion.

And as a prospective mother, this is an emotionally impactful account of multiple pregnancy losses due to a desperately unlucky series of unrelated chromosomal abnormalities related to a hyper-fertility condition.

Meanwhile in the wider world, the mimmoths have spread both in terms of geography but also across the world – and with associated fungal species seemingly impacting on first waste disposal, then on human longevity but then more controversially potentially on reducing fertility (in areas where a mimmoth was killed) , the character’s own issues and her high profile attracting to her a DEFRA official.

This will not be a novel for anyone. The two strands – the personal memoir, and the mimmoth appearances on a superficial level almost alternate rather than being mutually embedded. I think therefore some readers will not appreciate the subtlety (perhaps something missing from her best known work) with which the author links the two – as this is a novel which requires the reader to do much of the work.

For me though, and I say this of someone who championed “The Power” in literary fiction book forums often as a lone voice, this is Alderman’s best novel yet – and if the Women’s Prize judges are imaginative enough should give her a chance of a second success here.

My thanks to Fig Tree, Penguin UK for an ARC via NetGalley

I looked along the shelves, picking up a volume here and there, bringing one to my nose to smell the scent of old paper and ink. I felt quite calmly then that my mother was there, I could almost see her as if she were reflected in the dark glass of a window. I can often see her like that now. She is there in bookshops for me, in my looking through old books. She feels just around the corner looking for some piece of science fiction for herself, part of the between-possibility in which her diverticular disease never developed, and she remained healthy into her eighties. My imaginary child was there, too, in the between-possibilities of the labyrinth of books; a child looking for a book to take home. I knew the mimmoths saw me like that, all these possibilities real for them. But I had seen it already, without them. The world on paper is where the dead, and the living, and the never-born meet. I have made them meet in my dreams and in my work. I do not wish my ghosts away.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: They came from nowhere, and now they are everywhere.

A few months after her mother dies, the novelist Naomi Alderman sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parents’ home. It captures the first image of a strange new animal. Low to the ground, about the size of a badger, flat face, long, trunk-like nose. Suddenly these “mimmoths” are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they’ve come from.

As Alderman negotiates the territory of grief—a place with its own logic and rhythms – the mimmoths spread. From the UK east and west, to the United States, to Russia, to India. They seem harmless, but oddly intelligent. They cannot be captured, they will not take food from humans, they have their own purposes.

Alderman cannot shake the feeling that she has a particular connection to the creatures. Or is she just succumbing to ‘mimmoth psychosis’? As the impact of the mimmoths increases, she is pulled into the cross currents of conspiracy theories and global power struggles. Have her deeply personal forms of mourning lent recent events a surreal air, or is our reality changing drastically and irrevocably?

From the award-winning author of the international bestseller, The Power, The Strangers is a thrillingly original and devastatingly moving novel that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, inviting us to reconsider what it means to be human. It’s like nothing you’ll have read before.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Grief does very weird things to a person. I'll hold up my hand and admit I've hallucinated (officially) the sound of my thirty-five ears gone belovèd's voice more than once over the years. That one, however, is nothing compared to the mimmoths.

Shared, collective grief powers the mimmoths, of course; no way are fun-sized mammoth-y entities that just...appear...as Naomi Alderman's mother dies, her father's decline speeds up, the planet's climate and civilization's bad-crazy frag-grenade era heat up, just totally unrelated. There is plenty of evidence that Naomi Alderman is not the only one seeing them!

Mass psychosis? Permaybehaps...the mimmoths being widely seen hasn't meant they're easily, or even at all, interacted with, no feedings by humans, no captures (just killings) by humans, nothing tangible except ubiquity. Oh, and lots of (potentially) related effects stemming from being in the vicinity of the mimmoths, healing or spontaneous abortion or death, but SOMEthing momentous occurs to some people (Naomi Alderman included), so of course the conspiracy-theory areas of society have new fodder for old conspiracies and material to make new ones.

Book-Naomi Alderman and Author Naomi Alderman are entwined narratively and intertwined emotionally, as the genesis of the story in mother-loss is real world; the mimmoths and their effects, well...the effects are real, and while I haven't seen a mimmoth I'd love to. What led to Author Naomi Alderman creating this lovely, odd, off-kilter sci-fi memoir is the awfulness of needing a way to work through the random events in a world where the god you thought was yours turns out not to exist and nothing you've thought was real is, in fact, enduringly persistently real, the stuff that god should prevent/ameliorate isn't getting better, and love does not conquer all...but Love persists, endures."Everyone knows the saying: Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

But it's not true. Some things don't kill you but just leave you permanently weaker," as Naomi Alderman muses.

A better way to present the fragmented sensation of living on after the death of a love object but not the love is hard for me to conjure. A mimmoth is real, if not tangible; it affects the world but has no effect on it, like a past, like a dead love; and comes from a silent nowhere without explanation like the Orthodox Jewish god that Naomi Alderman has lost.

It is in blurring the lines separating Author Naomi Alderman's terrible emotional, psychic blows, and the consensus-reality immiseration of end-stage capitalism, that this story's impact is most powerful. Creating, summoning the mimmoths, endowing them with potency of emotional and practical sorts...affect and effect...Author Naomi Alderman makes this a story to be reckoned with. As Author Naomi Alderman processes the profundity of her loss (mostly the loss of possibility, a different, better future) after her mother's death, Naomi Alderman reckons with the world's losses and the loss of the world through her semidivine, partly malign living-but-not mimmoths.

Like every other grief considered I've ever read, this is not a story for its own sake or an entertainment to be enjoyed for a while then largely forgotten. It's not tidy enough for that. Manicured Versailles gardens are not the analogues here, but the designed and controlled wildernesses of Capability Brown. Visibly as different as it's possible to be, yet each is a planned, designed, shaped, undergirded and attention-directing space to be within. Moving through The Strangers will give you the feels a great piece of writing is so good at delivering. Don't expect Versailles, enjoy the wilder, less trammeled world of Capability Brown, and I expect you'll feel amply rewarded.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman ended up being a much more personal and emotional read than I ever expected. Going into it, I thought I was picking up a science fiction novel with an intriguing premise and speculative elements. And while those elements are certainly present, what I actually found was a deeply meaningful story about grief, acceptance, memory, and the difficult process of moving forward after loss.

This book hit especially close to home for me because my own mother passed away only several months ago, and so much of the protagonist’s emotional journey felt painfully real. Alderman captures grief in a way that feels honest and deeply human. It’s not melodramatic or exaggerated. Instead, it’s quiet, messy, confusing, and ever-present in the background of daily life. There were moments in this book that genuinely resonated with me on a deeply personal level, especially the way the main character struggles with holding onto the past while simultaneously trying to figure out how to continue living in the present.

What impressed me most was how seamlessly Alderman balances the speculative aspects of the story with its emotional core. The science fiction elements never overshadow the characters or the themes. Instead, they enhance them, acting as a lens through which the story explores identity, memory, and human connection. The “what if?” at the center of the novel is fascinating, but it’s the emotional consequences of that premise that really make the book memorable.

The writing itself is thoughtful and immersive. Alderman has a way of creating characters who feel fully realized, flawed, and relatable. The dialogue felt natural, and the introspective passages carried a lot of emotional weight without ever feeling heavy-handed.

I also appreciated how the novel doesn’t offer easy answers. Grief is complicated, and The Strangers understands that. It acknowledges that healing doesn’t happen in a straight line and that acceptance doesn’t mean forgetting. There’s sadness throughout the book, but also warmth, understanding, and ultimately hope.

By the end, I realized this wasn’t really a science fiction novel in the way I had expected. It’s a story about loss and humanity first, with speculative fiction woven thoughtfully into its DNA. And honestly, I think that’s what made it so powerful for me.

[Linda Galella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can you imagine a book that combines memoir with light science fiction?

Some are calling Naomi Alderman’s new book, THE STRANGERS, “auto fiction”. For me, Alderman is focusing on a specific, difficult period of time in her life, not her entire life’s story. That makes this book a memoir (ish) story dispersed between a science fiction story and a trauma analysis/workbook.

Naomi and her father are dealing with the recent death of her mother. In an effort to give her dad something to do, she set up outdoor cameras in mom’s garden; her favorite place. While reviewing some overnight videos, Naomi and Dad discover there is an animal frequenting their garden that neither has ever seen before. Enter the Mimoths.

As is typical in today’s world, a few inquiries about a new animal become a sensation online to be sensationalized by every “news” organization. From rumors of healing powers to destroyers of life as it’s known, these critters become hot topic number one.

One of the suspected “symptoms” a Mimoth is accused of causing is infertility. Miscarriages and fertility issues are paramount in Naomi’s life. She’s dealing with all the sadness, self doubt, grief and trauma caused by these difficult circumstances on top of healing from her Mom’s passing.

Naomi intersperses these real life issues into the story about the Mimoths. She tries to work out the tenuous relationship with her mother, the demands of her writing career and caring for her failing, grieving father. Many of her musings are lived out in the Mimoth storyline that’s a mix of real science and SciFi. At times, I found it confusing to follow. Truthfully, it felt a bit like my emotional state when dealing with the protracted death of my father accompanied by dealing with my mentally ill mother. Readers who’ve walked thru long periods of physical and emotional challenges should recognize some familiarity with the author’s experiences.

Orthodox Judaism plays a key role in Alderman’s life. It’s how she was raised and often becomes a factor as she works out her painful life events. Even tho’ she describes herself as “…ceasing to be an Orthodox Jew”, Naomi continues to consider and question God in her processing the losses of her babies and Mom.

The Mimoth story becomes a place for questions, reconciliation, comfort and possibilities. It’s both scientific and anecdotal. Alderman repeats herself, more than a little, affecting the flow and pacing. Better editing would be helpful since I believe the author was too emotionally attached to deliver a more organized presentation.

It’s hard to know who THE STRANGERS is a good fit for. This isn’t a book for everyone. Readers who’ve walked thru like circumstances, those who enjoy light science fiction, unique writing styles and emotional memoirs might be good candidates📚

I received a copy for review purposes. All opinions are honest and mine alone.
Read & Reviewed from a NetGalley eARC with thanks to the publisher and author.

[Jillian B · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Strangers is a book about encounters with the unknown, whether it’s a newly discovered, mysterious creature, or the loss of a parent. Its unique blend of fiction and nonfiction gets at something deeper about how transformative grief can be. Full review on BookBrowse: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update, September 22, 2026: Out today! I think I’m going to need to buy myself a copy of this weird little book just to own it forever.

—

I almost didn’t pick this one up because the early reviews were looking pretty negative, but then I read Emily Ray’s review and decided to give it a shot. I’m glad I did.

To write a book is an act of hope that one can be understood.

This is a work of autofiction: part deeply personal memoir, part speculative fiction. The book reads as Alderman processing her grief when her mother died and her pain of multiple miscarriages. This is so reflective, but the speculative elements of the mimmoths, their origins, and their impact on humans are also gripping and new.

Whatever was happening, it was happening to me and therefore it was mine.

It’s weird, though! And it’s another that’s not for everyone and hard to know who to recommend it to. The writing itself is 10/10, so if beautiful prose is important to you and maybe if you’re a fan of magical realism, I’d give it a shot. This is different in pace than Alderman’s other work: it’s much more meandering and contemplative. I don’t always like that, but it’s so insightful in its meanderings and contemplations that I was completely locked in.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company!

[Emmeline]

DNF on page 62

I don't tend to like autofiction, so I approached this with a little skepticism--but then, I reasoned, it was auto-science-fiction, a whole other beast.

It was an it wasn't. I was drawn to the idea of mixing personal grief with an actual whole other beast--discovering a new species at the bottom of your garden. But some of the auto parts felt like therapy sessions (the narrator musing on her weight and her mother's reaction to it), while the speculative angle shuffled along.

I would probably have read on but the writing style is just much plainer and more even-keeled than I personally like.

[Emma's In Stock]

DNFed @ 38% on page 108.

I wish I had known that this book was an autobiography-esque story, or else I wouldn't have read it. I picked this up on the idea of these interesting, new creatures. Therefore, I was just bored considering that I was more interested in the sci-fi aspects and the creatures than in the autobiographical aspects that I was neither expecting nor that compelled by. A lot of this book's said autobiographical aspects don't feel very grounded, anyway. For example, every time the author mentions that she's had a miscarriage, we aren't given much info to ground this in the overall story. Yes, the author doesn't want to name her partner, but how is her marriage? Where does her want and love for kids come from? How did her mother, whom the author talks about her relationship with most of the time, react to her daughter's miscarriages? I wish there had been more meat in general otherwise these objectively horrible moments end up just floating around in the story.

Overall this book felt the tiniest bit flat.

[Sophy H · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a bit perturbed with this one to be fair.

It felt like Naomi Alderman couldn't quite decide what to do, as though she wanted to write a memoir about the grief of losing her mum and her miscarriages but perhaps thought that wouldn't be interesting enough on its own so she had to add in the "mimmoths" novelty.

There was way too much mention of covid times and too much hand wringing about Brexit, trans and immigrant issues which didn't feel relevant to a "fiction" book.

I feel like she should have just bitten the bullet and wrote a memoir of her grief and maybe admitted that some imaginative thinking about creatures had helped her through some hard times, rather than trying to rely on this as a fully blown fiction. The dallying between the two didn't really work.

I'm glad this was a library loan for me.

[Maxine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well this was something unexpected to say the least. This will be a Marmite/Vegemite book for sure. Some will like it and others won’t. I sit bang in the middle. I didn’t dislike it, in fact some aspects of the book I found fascinating and hugely engaging however other parts had me drifting off and wanting to get back to the fictional elements.

This book is Autofiction which basically is a book that combines memoir/autobiography with fiction. I actually didn’t realise this when I started reading the book initially. Then it all clicked.

The Author is tackling some painful and deep personal grief, loss and challenges in this book and it’s quite moving but won’t be for everyone. Her “voice” and expression is raw and honest and I always think people are brave to put themselves out there so open and raw.

What I LOVED was The Mimmoths! Oh I adored them. I wanted the whole book to be about them. I want an entire fiction novel dedicated to these baffling yet endearing creatures!

One day an unusual looking creature (mammalian) is seen then another, and another and more and more until they spread in sightings from the UK to other parts of the world.

They bring with them kindness, gentleness of spirit, comfort and a touch of magic. It’s very much used I came to see, as part of the Authors story.

There are some beautiful scenes like when a Mimmoth sits near the Author in the back garden and gently touches her and things brings her a great peace. They are a bit elusive. Scientists are trying to study them. They have positive impact on the soil, the environment, crops. They are also so freaking adorable. The description of their little snouts!

Please bring back the original cover with the Mimmoth on! It makes so much more sense and more appealing. The book held me because of the interweaving of this fictional story with facts. I’m not sure if this would have been for me at all if it was just pure memoir, I’m not really a big memoir reader at all. It was certainly unique and different and I can’t express how much I’d love a whole fiction book around these precious creatures and all they bring to humanity.

3 stars from me. I sit middle ground with this one. I’d say to people give it a go but not sure if you’ll love it or not. You can’t not love the Mimmoths however. The Author has bravely stepped out into unusual writing territory and for that I applaud the book. Not easy to put yourself out there so openly.

Many thanks to the publisher Penguin for my ARC via NetGalley.

Thanks so much for taking a little time to read my review. Your likes and comments mean a lot to me. 😻 Feel free to add me as a friend or follow me for more book reviews.

[Olive Fellows (abookolive)]

Is it a requirement of an Alderman novel that you squint at the premise in disbelief as you read it? Putting STRANGE in "The Strangers," I see.

The new cover is a downgrade. Bring back the weird-looking creature. Stay whimsical and off-putting. (My mantra.)

Click here to hear more about this book and my other anticipated releases of the upcoming quarter over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!

[Holden Wunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

What makes Naomi Alderman so incredible is her unflinching nerve. She is never afraid to go to places that are uncomfortable, painful, or political and that’s what makes her science fiction so good. I truly believe you cannot write science fiction without politics, it is a tenet of the genre and without it it’s hollow. But Alderman does something in The Strangers that is truly hard to put into words.

Is this another science fiction edition? I mean, technically. But I would argue this is her foray into literary fiction. Sure, she releases a new and highly intelligent species upon us, “the mimmoths” but it’s not really the point of the story. Instead this book focuses on love and grief and their intertwining. It is part memoir, part fictional tale and uniquely reminiscent of nothing I’ve read before. Alderman has been one of my favourite voices in modern day science fiction and now it seems I can add literary voice to that repertoire as well.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5
This novel is partly about a new species called ‘mimmoths,’ but it’s so much more about grief and mourning. And even though I get what their function is in the book, I think I could have done without them and it would have been a better book for me, more of a memoir than a fictionalised memoir.
Thank you Penguin UK for the ARC.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

2🌟

Thank you Little Brown Company and Netgalley for the advanced copy of The Stranger in exchange for my honest thoughts and opinions.

I honestly can't believe what I just read. I've read almost a thousand books over the past several years, nearly two hundred so far in 2026 and I can say without a doubt that this was the worst book I've ever read. There are zero redeeming qualities and I'm having such a hard time just not bashing this book to shreds for not only wasting my time but doing so in a way that will never make me want to pick up a book by this author ever again.

​Let me set the scene. The author, who places herself in the book as the main character gives us one part memoir, as there were certain aspects of this book that were true to life and that I really sympathize with and then one part sci fi where these newly discovered creatures called Mimmoths (a play on small Mammoths) have taken over the globe. No one knows anything about these creatures, their intent or what to do with them but Naomi, our author and female lead has a special connection with them and sees them as companions while she deals with the recent loss of her mother.

​There is some very serious subject matter that really takes over this book like pregnancy loss and the grief that comes with that and in any other book, I would have loved to dive into how one would overcome such a thing. But here, when you introduce an ambiguous creature like this one, have it be such a mystery and then slowly feed us pieces of its potential uprising, that is the story I wanted to follow. Each time more and more pieces of that puzzle were revealed, the author decided to take us down memory lane with childhood flashbacks and the up and down relationship with her mother and I was bored out of my skull each time the focus went there.

​These Mimmoths were truly just the intermission to the stage play inside Naomi's head as she came to terms with her mother's loss. This book was well under 300 pages but read like a 1000 page history novel as there was very minimal dialogue and many, many paragraphs describing everything Naomi could think of, instead of these strange beings. Chapter 20 was the best example of where this book could have turned the tide as it featured the sci fi suspense and intrigue I was waiting for the entire time. But wouldn't you know, the very next chapter it was more of the same. More diving into the past. More extremely long treks down memory lane and it was like watching paint dry which would have been more entertaining I guarantee you that.

​The climax tried to make it all worth it by giving us an outside of the box payoff that would have played better if the sci fi aspect was a bigger part of the overall narrative but it's unforgivable to completely blank on that part of the story when it was by far the most interesting piece of the entire thing. To pull an M. Night Shyamalan and place yourself within this book and give us real pieces of your life, mixed with fictional parts and only focus on the former means you should have just written a real memoir instead so at least we would have known what to expect. I still don't know what this book was trying to accomplish but whatever it is, it was simply not for me. What an epic... waste.

[Angyl · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Strangers sets out to combine many things in one, becoming an autobiographical science-fiction novel focused on grief, loss, politics, and humanity. It didn't blend together like I thought it would.

Our protagonist is UK-based author, Naomi Alderman. The story follows the aftermath of her mothers death when strange creatures, eventually named 'mimmoths,' begin emerging across the UK, before spreading worldwide. These animals are unlike anything ever seen before and no one can quite explain where they came from, what they even are, or really anything about them. Not only is Naomi still living in the grief from losing her mother, but she is also coping with the loss of several pregnancies over many years.

I absolutely loved this at the beginning. The writing pulled me in, and I found myself quickly wrapped up in the mimmoth mystery. Why is it that no one has been able to find a mimmoth den? What is the correlation between mimmoths being spotted and life expectancy increasing in the same areas? Why do these little creatures seem to have an almost human-like level of knowledge and perception? Unfortunately for me, I don't think Alderman's goal was ever to answer these questions.

It seemed like every time the story got interesting or some new discovery with the mimmoths was revealed, we quickly pivoted into long discussions of grief and loss. And, not to repeat myself, I actually enjoyed this at the beginning. Grief is such a personal, complex experience that affects everyone differently, and I usually love books where this is a main theme. Yet, as the book went on, I started to become really bored with the whole thing. I feel bad for even saying that as this is clearly autobiographical fiction, and I'm sure it acted as an outlet for the author, so I hate to be like 'ugh the way she was writing about her grief was sooo boring', but that's the honest truth of how I felt 🤷🏼‍♀️ It got to a point where I had to force myself to finish the book because I knew if I put it down one more time, I would never finish it and that led me to losing all enjoyment I previously had.

I was hoping the more serious topics would tie in nicely with the light sci-fi and for a minute I felt like there was some grand metaphor underneath it all that I was beginning to understand, but I lost hold of the threads and couldn't pull myself back in. In the end, I feel like the story with the mimmoths didn't really go anywhere, and I'm left feeling disappointed. Despite that, I did really like the writing and highlighted many quotes which makes me look forward to reading Alderman's The Power which is on my physical tbr 💃🏼

I've only read one other book that falls into the autofiction category, and I think that one also ended up being a 2 star for me... so maybe I'm the problem here. I would advise other readers to know before going in that the bulk of the book focuses on Naomi's journey losing her mother, reflecting on childhood trauma, recounting lost pregnancies, and also some conversation around covid and world politics. The sci-fi/speculative plot takes a back seat to this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an electronic copy of this book to review.

[Rachel Drenning · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this one. It was strange, beautiful, and unexpectedly comforting.

The way grief is woven through the story really stayed with me. It made me think about my own grief and how it can change the way you see the world around you. The mimmoths added this surreal layer that somehow made the whole thing feel even more real.

I loved how the story blurred the line between what was actually happening and what grief was making Naomi believe. It felt dreamlike without losing its emotional weight.

This was such a unique book. It made me sad, curious, and strangely comforted all at once.

Definitely one that will stay with me.

[Insert Name Here · Rating 5 out of 5]

## PRE-READING

I don't know what to do with this book.

I mean that as a compliment.

We have a strange new animal, grief, miscarriage, questions about reality, conspiracy theories, global political consequences and what appears to be a substantial amount of Naomi Alderman's own life folded into the story. I have absolutely no idea where the boundary between autobiography and fiction lies, and I'm not sure I want to know.

There is something slightly unnerving about reading a fictionalised Naomi processing experiences that may or may not be fictionalised versions of things that actually happened to her. Particularly when the entire book is asking how much of what we experience can be trusted.

Excellent. Let's go.

## POST-READING

*The Strangers* is one of those books where attempting to explain exactly what happens somehow makes it sound considerably less interesting.

The basic premise is wonderfully strange: a new intelligent animal, nicknamed mimmoths, suddenly begins appearing in England and then across the world. They are fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. They seem to understand human traps, won't be tamed, aren't interested in accepting food and don't particularly seem interested in allowing humans to understand them.

I desperately wanted to know more about them.

And yet, when the book ends without giving us a nice little field guide to mimmoth behaviour, I didn't feel cheated.

That's because I don't think the mimmoths are actually the point.

They are the mechanism through which the book gets to Naomi: her mother's death, repeated miscarriages, her memories of her own life and the ways in which grief can change the shape of reality. Naomi is constantly looking backwards, considering how different choices might have changed things, how her experiences have affected her and whether the world she's currently experiencing is really the world she thinks it is.

The mimmoths make that uncertainty literal.

There are moments when it becomes difficult to know whether Naomi is noticing something genuinely strange or whether grief is making connections that aren't there. The possibility of "mimmoth psychosis" becomes particularly unsettling because the question isn't simply whether she's right about the animals. It's whether the person experiencing something has any reliable way of distinguishing an altered reality from an altered perception.

And the book is very interested in that space.

I also appreciated that the mimmoths themselves remain genuinely *other*. They aren't secretly waiting to become our friends. They aren't conveniently available for scientific study. They don't exist simply to give humanity a new source of wonder or a new problem to solve. They have their own purposes, and humans are left trying to interpret behaviour that wasn't designed for human understanding.

There are implications towards the end about what they might actually be, but they remain implications. And, surprisingly, that worked for me.

Because this isn't really a book about explaining the mimmoths.

It's a book about what happens when something incomprehensible enters a world where people are already trying desperately to make sense of things.

That makes the autobiographical element particularly fascinating. I genuinely don't know how much of Naomi's experience is drawn from real life, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. But there are passages that have the uncomfortable intimacy of someone thinking about things they have actually lived through rather than constructing an entirely fictional person's history.

The result is a book that feels simultaneously intimate and enormous: one woman's grief unfolding against something that may be changing the entire world.

And somehow, amongst all of this, there are moments of extraordinary peace.

A garden. Flowers moving in the breeze. The ordinary world continuing to exist while something deeply strange is happening just beyond it.

I think that contrast is what stayed with me most. Grief doesn't stop the world. The flowers still move. People still have conversations. Animals still appear in gardens. Somewhere, somebody is still making dinner. Meanwhile, your own understanding of reality can feel as though it has been completely rearranged.

This is not an easy book to categorise. It isn't quite literary fiction, quite speculative fiction, quite memoir, quite horror, quite mystery. It borrows from all of them without settling comfortably into any one of their boxes.

Honestly, I think it would be rather a shame if it did.

It is strange, unsettling, thoughtful and occasionally devastating. And I still want to know what the hell a mimmoth actually is.

## RECOMMENDATIONS

This is a difficult one to recommend by genre because I suspect the most useful recommendation is **"Do you enjoy books that leave you thinking about them afterwards?"**

If you liked the reality-bending uncertainty of *The Employees* by Olga Ravn, or the quietly uncanny examination of grief and identity in *Our Wives Under the Sea* by Julia Armfield, there is a reasonable chance this will work for you.

But go in expecting questions rather than answers. Particularly about the mimmoths.

You have been warned.

## MUSIC PAIRING

**“From the Morning” — Nick Drake**

Quiet, beautiful and touched with melancholy, with a sense of the natural world carrying on regardless of whatever enormous things are happening inside the person looking at it.

## VIBE CHECK

**Colour palette:** faded greens, soft grey, cream and the dusky pink of flowers in late afternoon.

**Soundtrack:** very soft music playing somewhere indoors, birds in the garden, leaves moving in the breeze. Occasionally, the distant sound of something you cannot quite identify.

**Season:** late spring edging into summer, when everything is growing faster than you can keep track of it.

**Mood:** grief-stricken, contemplative and quietly uncanny.

**Scent:** damp earth, crushed grass, flowers warming in the sun.

**Texture:** cool ceramic, soft leaves between your fingers, old photographs and the slightly rough paper of a notebook.

And somewhere beyond the garden fence, there is an animal you have never seen before.

You aren't entirely sure whether it's really there.

## TAROT CARD PULLED

**The Empress**

At first glance, The Empress might seem like an odd choice for such an unsettling book. But the more I think about it, the more inevitable it feels.

The Empress is motherhood, fertility, the body, nature and creation—but also the complicated reality of what happens when creation and loss exist side by side.

That makes her particularly resonant with Naomi's experiences of motherhood and miscarriage, but she also connects beautifully to the mimmoths and their relationship with the natural world. Their presence changes things around them in ways humans don't fully understand, while the plants and gardens provide some of the book's quietest moments of beauty.

The Empress also asks us to sit with the fact that life doesn't always obey the narratives we want to give it.

Things grow.

Things die.

Things appear that we didn't expect.

And sometimes we don't get to know why.

## THE TRUE QUESTION

**How do you make sense of a world that refuses to make sense for you?**

[Books_the_Magical_Fruit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alderman’s debut book, “The Power”, has been on my “Want to Read” list for a few years now, but “The Strangers” is the first book by her that I have read. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since I gathered from the reviews of the former book that the subject matter was quite polarizing.

This new book is an interesting cross between an autobiography and a science fiction story, and some readers may not be able to appreciate the two genres smashed together.

However, I am here to tell you that this is absolutely worth your time, so put those negative thoughts away and just go along with it.

The main character, the successful author Naomi Alderman, is grieving both the loss of her mother and the former’s own series of miscarriages. If you have dealt or are dealing with infertility, this may not be the book for you. Or it may be the perfect book for you, if you’re searching for a way to describe your feelings and want to read words by someone who GETS it.

Alderman does not shy away from sharing her most raw, earth-shattering experiences, along with her thoughts, written almost in a stream of consciousness way. She is REAL and ANGRY and CONFUSED and BEATEN DOWN, and ALL.THE.THINGS. There are so, so many passages that I highlighted, due to the intimate, new-to-me perspectives of someone going through intense grief.

This is heavy, heavy subject matter, and I want to make sure that this is known by readers who may be sensitive to such topics, before they dive in.

In the midst of Alderman working through her losses and simultaneously struggling to be there for her widower father, a new species of animal is sighted in the U.K. At first, people think they are large cats, or badgers, but as more and more photos are posted online, their uniqueness becomes apparent. Since they bear a passing resemblance to a tiny elephant, or mini mammoths, the nickname “mimmoth” quickly catches on.
Although the mimmoths don’t really interact with other animals or humans, we soon find out that they will fight back if attacked. They also seem to possess uncanny intelligence, with one even physically comforting Ms. Alderman in an especially moving scene.

I will stop there so that you can discover what happens next on your own.

If you think you can mentally and emotionally handle the topics, I highly recommend reading this.


I have received an eARC from Netgalley and Little, Brown & Company (thank you!), and this does not affect my review in any way.

[Lady Georgette (ieatpagesforbreakfast) · Rating 5 out of 5]

• BOOK REVIEW •

New ARC!
Date of Release : 22nd Sept 2026

Date : 9th Sept 2026
Book : The Strangers
Author : Naomi Alderman
Genre : Memoir / Literary Fiction / Sci-Fi

Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Before I read this book, I didn’t realize it was a partial memoir based on the authors personal grief on losing her mother which felt deeply personal. I definitely could resonate with this book because of the passing of my own mum. I don’t think many people would understand the uniqueness of this book honestly unless you want to.

But in this book, where the sci-fi elements takes over is when she sets up her camera in the garden and notices a new animal that nobody has seen before…totally weird (I know). Strangely soon after, the whole world sees it too. This then brings out all the conspiracy theorists, people arguing on the internet and of course the whole government is freaking out. All while Naomi is just trying to process her own grief.

It’s truly an odd book that actually makes a lot of sense as you read it as it definitely makes you think about how we handle change when our personal world is already falling apart.

Thank you @netgalley and @littlebrown for the e-ARC invite and to the author for a really unique read. I did wonder if this book was meant to be kept personal initially but I’m glad you shared it with us!✨

[Jen · Rating 3.25 out of 5]

3.25⭐️
A well written trauma dump interspersed with a much more pleasing side of John Wyndhamesque sci-fi/speculative fiction.

[Susan J. Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve only read one Naomi Alderman book previously; The Future, which I loved. Going into The Strangers, I’d read the synopsis so was expecting something a little different. It was very different.
The Strangers reads like an autobiography; one that she’s written as a private catharsis which was never really intended for publication. Alderman is profoundly affected by the loss of multiple pregnancies and the death of her mother. She exposes some very personal thoughts and feelings about those experiences.
It’s extremely readable and, of course, beautifully written, but it’s not your typical science fiction.
The mimmoths are charming and seem to be a huge source of comfort during her mourning period for her mother. I enjoyed the conspiracy theorist aspect which reflects some of the worst parts of human nature; the paranoia, fear and aggression we show in the face of anything we don’t understand or control. This contrasted perfectly with the kind and gentle nature of the mimmoths.
Five stars from me, with thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General U.K. for the ARC.
The Strangers releases on 17 September.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Naomi Alderman’s latest is so strange, emotional and wonderful, I don’t know where to begin. Part memoir, part sci-fi/fantasy, this book is heavy and emotional. It won’t be for everyone, but it was absolutely for me.

The Strangers takes place just a month after Naomi Alderman’s mother dies. While spending more time with her grieving father, Naomi spots a strange creature in her dad’s back garden. The internet does its thing with the photo, and slowly more people claim to have seen these new creatures, which the world decides to call mimmoths. As Naomi processes her immense grief over her mother’s death, paired with the prolonged grief of intense and devastating miscarriages, her curiosity about the mimmoths grows. While on book tours and at public speaking events, she starts to notice mimmoths wherever she goes, and even develops a special relationship with one in her father’s garden.

Of course, not everyone is thrilled about these new creatures. There’s a lot of speculation about where they came from, what they’re up to, and whether or not humans should try to control them. Naomi’s special interest with these creatures, paired with her journey of grief, is absolutely mesmerizing.

Naomi Alderman is an incredible writer, and The Strangers is no exception. The grief in this book is so raw and powerful. The mimmoths are so incredibly intriguing. I deeply connected with this novel, I’m so glad to have had the chance to read it.

Thanks so much to Naomi Alderman, Little, Brown & Company and NetGalley for the digital ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Beatrice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC link from Kathleen Quinlan, at Little, Brown and Company, in exchange for my honest review.

The book presents itself as a bit of a science fiction, with the appearance of strange little animals in the UK, who come to be referred to as mimmoths. There are sighting of them 'dancing' and of strange mushroom like growths appearing and disappearing and difficulty in photographing them. They start to appear around Europe and India and eventually the United States, and you think you know where this is going - invasive species takes over the world, etc.

But in reality, this book is about grief. Deep, profound, endless grief. The author has given her protagonist her own name, and it would not surprise me to learn that this was written after a loss of her own. And while I can certainly relate to the waves of grief one feels after losing a parent, I did not enjoy reading about her grief. It was unrelenting and, in the end, frankly, a bit boring. For all the talk about mimmoth psychosis and blather about reduced fertility and unusual crop health, nothing really happens in this book.

We are instead treated to endless replays of her mother's painful last year on earth, with bowel fissures and hospitalizations, and though the book seems to be set in the present day, lots of Covid mentions. Also Mommy called her fat when she was a kid and now approaching 50, she's still not over it. Bummer.

There is the set up for some possible intrigue with a man in government named Ian but that literally comes to nothing as he vanishes from her living room couch in what may or may not have been a hallucination like experience. I so wanted this to be better but found it to be so boring and depressing - maybe the vibes would have been better suited to a dreary wintertime read?

[Renee Godding · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars

"One sees things in the days and weeks after a death. We both thought that we might actually be going mad the first time we saw The Image of the mimmoth in my mother’s garden where she had collapsed collecting water for her orchids."

The Strangers, not unlike the fictional animal species at its center, somewhat defies taxonomy. It is part grief-memoir, part fiction meets eco-magical realism, but wholly idiosyncratic and striking as a result.

The Story:
A few months after her mother dies, our protagonists (Alderman herself) sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parents’ home. It captures the first image of a strange new animal. Low to the ground, about the size of a badger, flat face, long trunk-like nose. Suddenly these ‘mimmoths’ are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they’ve come from.
Suddenly, mimmoths are everywhere; infiltrating the public and political discourse on a macro-scale, and burrowing in her garden on a microscale. Our protagonist cannot shake the feeling of a personal interest and connection to these strange creatures. Have her recent losses and mourning lent recent events a surreal air, or is our reality changing drastically and irrevocably?

What I loved:
The special thing about magical realism in (literary) fiction, is how it can sometimes capture an experience in a way that feels paradoxically more real than the factual recounting. Some experiences, especially major life-events, can be difficult to capture in words. Their impact may feel so far removed from the ordinary, that something needs to be added to the natural to do it justice. Something “supernatural”, in the literal sense of the word, you could say.
An intensely happy experience can feel like true magic, a traumatic event like an actual monster, a recurrent memory like a haunting. Or in this case, a series of losses can feel so disorienting that it feels like something foreign has invaded your natural environment. The magical realism metaphor becomes an extension of the true experience, beyond the facts; a sort of ultra-truth.
For me, The Strangers is the perfect example of such a story. Alderman uses the mimmoths to explore a particularly layered and complex flavour of grief. “Layered” being a key word here.
As is often the case with grief, Alderman’s is almost mycelial: it extends far below the visible surface and infiltrates everything. It’s also inherently communicative: each new bereavement will send out tendrils out to touch to neighbouring losses to create a network that can feel impossible to detangle. Alderman captures this extraordinarily well.
On a personal level, the recent loss of her mother connects to the grief over her changing relationship with her father, and a series of series of miscarriages she suffered in the previous years. These personal griefs also connect with the far more societal and systemic griefs of the post-COVID-19-era and the its political and social climate.

The mimmoths accompany us through these different layers. They are with Alderman on a personal level; a single one arriving in the garden that her mother tended around the time of her death, and setting off the chain of events. This same one appearing over and over again, and her fondness for this strange wild animal growing over the course of the story.
They are also omnipresent as an ecological phenomenon. As such, they give a glimpse into how we respond to collective grief – such as the COVID-pandemic – and how the personal and collective can compound.
If you’re new to magical realism elements in your (contemporary) fiction, I can imagine how you’d initially bounce off the mimmoths. They are undeniably strange and feel out of place in the recognizable setting of reality. To me however, that worked in favour of the metaphor. Grief to me – especially compound-grief – has often been disorienting and baffling. How can the regular world just continue on, after something so completely out of place has been added? (or in the case of the loss of a person: subtracted from it).

There’s one final characteristic that made The Strangers a standout piece of grief-literature in my book. Most books, especially autobiographical ones, stop at describing grief. Alderman goes a step further and critically explores her grief. I love this, particularly because its so incredibly difficult to do when it is your own. I cannot do this exploration justice in a short-form review, but I will mention one example that resonated particularly hard with me. Alderman questions why the grief over her mother feels so different from the grief over her miscarriages. She does so without adding a value-judgement; neither is “worse than the other”. They’re simply different. One of the factors she identifies, is its congruence with the “season of life”.

“my mother’s death was a normal thing in the normal season. She hadn’t been a young woman. She had been unwell for quite some time. The feelings were more gentle. A light spring rain. This was just how her story had gone. Now it was done.” she writes.

The death of a parent “belongs” in adulthood. The loss of multiple children does not. It makes neither worse or more valid than the other, but it does colour the experience. The Strangers dares to shine a light on that observation in a way that I find rare in grief-literature.

If it wasn’t obvious from all of the above; I really loved The Strangers and would highly recommend it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this appear in my top 10 of the year in a few months…
Many thanks to Penguin UK for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

[Veronica Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Strangers is slippery, a memoir with a sci fi tweak that is both earth-shifting and intimate in its impact. Alderman tells us that her favorite stories are ones that reflect life with one important difference, and that's what she's written here: everything looks like life as we know it (except that a new, intelligent mammal species is proliferating wildly and seem to be shifting everything from birth rates to plant growth). The questions raised by the mimmoths, and the public and government machinations happening around them, are massive in scale; at various points, The Strangers includes national conspiracies, cloak and dagger meetings, and a bombing with global implications. Readers who pick it up based on this sci fi premise, though, will likely be disappointed, because at its heart The Strangers is a novel about grief, insular and quiet despite the monumental shifts taking place outside.

Months before the appearance of the mimmoths, Alderman's mother dies, a tragedy that follows years of trying to conceive and suffering a series of miscarriages. These twin heartbreaks--the loss of a parent and the loss of the ability to parent--pull Alderman backwards and forwards through time, through memories of her sometimes strained relationship with her mother and dreams of the children she wanted but could not have. What is jarring about the novel is jarring about grief more generally: Alderman treads the same ground over and over in an effort to understand herself, and this circling draws her further and further into herself. There are other characters in The Strangers, but few register as real and complete people outside of the way their lives intersect with Alderman's own. Despite its ambitions and scope, The Strangers feels quite small--a rumination on personal loss that happens while the world changes all around.

Conceptually, I think The Strangers is brilliant. Yes, of course people would be so immersed in their own lives that the growing strangeness of the larger world would sneak up like gradually boiling water. Of course they would view a global paradigm shift through the lens of their own beliefs and needs. In practice, though, I found The Strangers slow going, with long sections of introspection occasionally interrupted by a tantalizing hint of the genuinely weird. Alderman is brilliant at the kind of sci fi that sees humans clearly and uses our propensities for horror, and I found that the pockets of this book devoted to the mimmoths and the hysteria rising up around them were the most vital and engaging. Still, I appreciate Alderman's genre experimentation; I've never read another book like The Strangers.

[Helen French · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange book about strangers and how they can make you reflect on an ever-changing life.

The Strangers is autofiction - part memoir, part speculative fiction to be precise. Author Naomi Alderton is the main character, and she's still coming to term with her mother's death when a new animal appears in her parents' garden one day.

The mimmoths are badger-like creatures with a long proboscis. They appear first in England then spread across the world. No one is sure whether they are actually new or simply undiscovered until this moment. Furthermore, they're incredibly hard to capture, dead or alive, though they seem to be gentle. No one knows what to make of them or the fungi they seem to interact with.

At the same time as she is dealing with grief, Naomi is watching mimmoths as they visit her garden, as they appear here there and everywhere, wondering what they might mean. For man and its relationship with animals, and for her personally too.

This is essentially the main thrust of the plot. The book is not a page-turner. It's a slower, more introspective piece, that will work for some and not others. What do the mimmoths want, how do they live - and does any of it matter?

As well as the death of her mother, Naomi is thinking about her many miscarriages, and what it is to live with this type of infertility. This spoke to me, albeit I feel some guilt even saying that, having gone through infertility and eventually ending up with two living children.

Imagine how often people say things like 'well you couldn't possibly understand, you're not a mother'? The other side of the coin is that if it was easy for you to have a child, you have no idea what it's like to struggle, to not be able to do this thing that everyone else in the world (seemingly) can do - to burn up with it. Naomi knows. It's an incredibly personal, brave book as a result.

Because of my own history, there was so much that resonated for me. I also liked the exploration of what man would do if a new and impossible to understand creature came along. Humans are not easy fellows to get along with. We're pretty selfish, whether that's to protect ourselves out of fear, or because we're greedy for knowledge and control.

Nothing is neatly tied up, but I came away with a lot of sections that I've underlined to read again one day - there's a lot to think about. I particularly liked, 'Although the past is limited, in any given moment the self is almost infinite'.

A book that will divide many readers, but that I really enjoyed.

[Karen Mace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird book to review as it's a strange blend between memoir and science-fiction and at times that mixes well, but then it also doesn't!

I found the first half of the book to be the strongest - the author is navigating grief after losing her mum and sets up a wildlife camera in the garden for her and her dad to watch the nightime antics of the local critters! And that's when we're introduced to a brand new animal that appears - the mimmoths! They appear very randomly, disappear just as quickly, but also display a sense of empathy with the author. They soon become a viral sensation and spread around the globe, with their appearances causing division between people - some wanting to protect them, others wanting them culled.

For me I found the fiction didn't sit too well alongside the darker elements of the memoir, although it did lighten the mood and shows the dark/light moments of life that while in despair there are moments that shine a little light of joy in the world again. it still made for an intriguing read and it will be like nothing you've ever read before!

[Meg Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Naomi Alderman, Little, Brown and Company, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly don't think I've ever read anything quite like The Strangers. I’m not even sure I knew this particular combination of genres existed! Part memoir, part science fiction, part speculative fiction, and part raw, deeply honest reflection, this book is a completely different reading experience—and one I found incredibly moving.

Between 2017 and 2023, Alderman experienced a series of heartbreaking losses, including the death of her mother and multiple miscarriages that doctors could not explain. She writes openly about her grief, her complicated relationship with her mother, and the children she hoped to have but never got the chance to meet. Some of these experiences are presented with heartbreaking honesty, while others are filtered through the book’s science-fiction elements and surreal metaphors, creating an intriguing window into grief and the way our minds try to make sense of loss.

And then there are the mimmoths.

The discovery of this mysterious new species is woven so seamlessly into Alderman’s personal story that I genuinely found myself wondering for a moment whether I had somehow missed an announcement about these creatures actually existing! The mimmoths become so much more than an interesting science-fiction concept—they provide a fascinating way to explore grief, humanity, our relationship with the natural world, and our instinct to understand, categorize, and control things we don't understand.

What I loved most is that The Strangers refuses to fit neatly into a single category. It is a memoir, a science-fiction story, an exploration of grief, a look at human behavior and culture, and a meditation on what it means to be human. It is strange, distressing, thoughtful, sometimes funny, and incredibly raw.

I especially appreciated the honesty surrounding Alderman’s relationship with her mother. It isn’t presented as a simple story of loss or an idealized portrait of a parent. There are complicated feelings—love, frustration, hurt, understanding, resentment, and tenderness—and that made the grief feel all the more real and powerful.

This is definitely not going to be a book for everyone, and I can understand why some readers may struggle with the unusual blend of memoir and speculative fiction. But I hope readers give it the time and attention it deserves. This is a book to sit with, rather than simply rush through. I found myself thinking about its ideas long after I finished reading.

Naomi Alderman has created something genuinely original and incredibly moving. The Strangers is unlike anything I've read before, and I am so glad I took the chance on it.

Highly recommended for readers who are willing to step outside the usual genres and let a book surprise them.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very strange book, part memoir, part sci-fi, which I liked more as I went on, probably because when I started it I knew nothing about it and expected another gripping Alderman fiction, so the personal ruminations on grief and mothers initially felt like an annoying imposition in the cool sci-fi story I wanted to hear more about. But the two narratives fit together more and more as the story goes on, and by the final twenty pages I was really quite moved. 3.5 stars, and brava to Alderman for daring to do something so deeply personal and weirdly unique at the same time.