Book 41 of 2024: Julia by Sandra Newman

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

⚠️cw: pregnancy loss, torture, assault, sexism, murder, war, police brutality 

Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It’s 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. All her life, Julia has known only Oceania, and, until she meets Winston Smith, she has never imagined anything else. She is an ideal citizen who may sometimes bend the rules, but also collaborates with the regime when necessary. Everyone likes Julia. Then one day she finds herself walking toward Winston Smith in a corridor and impulsively slips him a note, setting in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story.

Phylis’s Former Student Book Club March read! Continuing our theme of female retellings for this year, Julia is a retelling of George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984, featuring Julia instead of Winston as the book’s protagonist. This book was a lot more graphic than I remember 1984 being, so I definitely recommend checking trigger warnings! I really enjoyed getting to hear this familiar story retold from a female perspective. It was incredibly interesting to dive more into the role of women in the Orwellian world the characters were in. I liked how there was a twist on Julia’s original story that recontextualises her role in the narrative. While the original novel’s ending obliterates all scraps of hope for Winston and Julia’s futures and freedom, Julia’s ending was a lot more thought provoking with a glimmer of hope, and leads the reader to question whether The Brotherhood is really all that different from Big Brother. I also really appreciated that Newman was able to give even more complexity to the novel’s familiar characters.