Hum A Novel
Hum A Novel by Helen Phillips, published by Simon and Schuster on June 3, 2025, is a thought-provoking exploration of a woman’s struggle for her family’s security in a near-future world impacted by climate change and advanced technology. This edition spans 288 pages and is presented in English. The narrative follows May, who, after losing her job to artificial intelligence, becomes a participant in an experiment that alters her appearance to evade surveillance, all while grappling with her family’s financial burdens.
Readers will encounter a tense dystopian landscape where intelligent robots, known as “hums,” coexist with humans. As May seeks a brief escape for her family in a Botanical Garden, she faces new threats that challenge her trust in the very technology that has disrupted her life. Hum delves into themes of motherhood, marriage, and identity, offering a nuanced perspective on the complexities of human relationships amid a rapidly changing world. This striking work of speculative fiction invites readers to reflect on the implications of technological progress and environmental challenges.
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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.
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