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Hello, World!
Not yet published
Expected 23 Mar 27Hello, World! introduces a high-flying, high concept debut from a major new voice that reads like if David Mitchell wrote Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
A perfect reality. A broken family. The secrets that will unravel everything.
Aleta Seppala is living what ought to be an idyllic life with her husband and daughter—every preference accounted for, proof of what a well-crafted world can offer. But one day, she disappears without a trace, leaving a grieving family and community behind.
Elliane Seppala grows up believing that her mother abandoned her. Her father, Ted, thinks his wife was taken, and he suspects his friend and business partner. Their misery and loneliness aren’t supposed to be possible, not here. Not in World.
World was created to be perfect, a virtual reality constructed as a shelter from the devastation of the real world. Enter your Preferences, say goodbye to your own reality, and plug in. Here, you can choose every detail. You can manufacture the right house, the right weather, the right life. If you hate rain, make every day sunny. You can banish mushrooms and pumpernickel bread from your world altogether, or even make all food taste like dessert. If self-doubt controls your life, you’ll become the confident person you never were. The only price? You must leave everything behind. No ties, no memories, no baggage. When you wake up in World, you are free.
When Elliane meets a mysterious stranger who claims to know exactly what happened to her mother, she discovers that World might be falling apart, glitch by glitch. As Preferences collapse and the increasing glitches threaten to destroy everything that matters, real and fake, Elliane is running out of time to uncover the secret that has clouded her heart for the better part of her life.
Equal parts deliciously escapist and stunningly profound, Hello, World! asks what the human brain is capable of, whether we’re hard-wired to repeat our own mistakes, and what happens when we get everything we ever thought we wanted.
A perfect reality. A broken family. The secrets that will unravel everything.
Aleta Seppala is living what ought to be an idyllic life with her husband and daughter—every preference accounted for, proof of what a well-crafted world can offer. But one day, she disappears without a trace, leaving a grieving family and community behind.
Elliane Seppala grows up believing that her mother abandoned her. Her father, Ted, thinks his wife was taken, and he suspects his friend and business partner. Their misery and loneliness aren’t supposed to be possible, not here. Not in World.
World was created to be perfect, a virtual reality constructed as a shelter from the devastation of the real world. Enter your Preferences, say goodbye to your own reality, and plug in. Here, you can choose every detail. You can manufacture the right house, the right weather, the right life. If you hate rain, make every day sunny. You can banish mushrooms and pumpernickel bread from your world altogether, or even make all food taste like dessert. If self-doubt controls your life, you’ll become the confident person you never were. The only price? You must leave everything behind. No ties, no memories, no baggage. When you wake up in World, you are free.
When Elliane meets a mysterious stranger who claims to know exactly what happened to her mother, she discovers that World might be falling apart, glitch by glitch. As Preferences collapse and the increasing glitches threaten to destroy everything that matters, real and fake, Elliane is running out of time to uncover the secret that has clouded her heart for the better part of her life.
Equal parts deliciously escapist and stunningly profound, Hello, World! asks what the human brain is capable of, whether we’re hard-wired to repeat our own mistakes, and what happens when we get everything we ever thought we wanted.
- GenresSpeculative Fiction
Audible Audio
Expected publication March 23, 2027
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Hello, World! explores so much of what it means to be human, along with that late-night stoner question of "what if life is just a simulation". In the end, we all just want to escape the inescapable. Whether this is grief, people with different morals, or just a food we kind of hate, can there really be a world where these things don't exist? And if so, is that world we have made real or just a blissful blindness?
There is something beautiful and horrifying about World and all those plugged in. This is a wheel that keeps turning and there is no getting off. Every choice made is the same as the original, no matter how much a character believes otherwise.
This is truly a special work that makes you think about what it means to be human in a world where more and more of our lives are online. Does making your online feed an echo chamber change reality or just put you in a little box where you are free to think that everyone is just like you?
Thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing an eARC of Hello, World!. This review is entirely of my own opinion.
There is something beautiful and horrifying about World and all those plugged in. This is a wheel that keeps turning and there is no getting off. Every choice made is the same as the original, no matter how much a character believes otherwise.
This is truly a special work that makes you think about what it means to be human in a world where more and more of our lives are online. Does making your online feed an echo chamber change reality or just put you in a little box where you are free to think that everyone is just like you?
Thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing an eARC of Hello, World!. This review is entirely of my own opinion.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Hello World!'s strength is in the name itself. The World these characters live in is fascinating. I loved that instead of just giving you information, the characters asked themselves (and each other) the same things you are wondering. Karisa blends a highly topical fantastical idea with realistic feeling emotions and relatable musings.
She also managed to balance the difficult of balancing a large number of POVs. Seeing how they began to intertwine as I got close to the end of the book was very rewarding as a reader.
I ended the books with a lot of questions and while I wish maybe I could've had a few more answers, I think that was part of the narrative power. I will definitely be thinking about this book for some time.
*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review*
She also managed to balance the difficult of balancing a large number of POVs. Seeing how they began to intertwine as I got close to the end of the book was very rewarding as a reader.
I ended the books with a lot of questions and while I wish maybe I could've had a few more answers, I think that was part of the narrative power. I will definitely be thinking about this book for some time.
*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review*
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews