The Free Peoples Village, Sim Kern
The Free Peoples Village, Sim Kern
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

The Free People's Village

Author: Sim Kern

Narrator: Sophie Amoss

Unabridged: 12 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 09/12/2023


Synopsis

In an alternate 2020 timeline, Al Gore won the 2000 election and declared a War on Climate Change rather than a War on Terror. Green infrastructure projects have transformed U.S. cities into lush paradises (for wealthy, white neighborhoods, at least), and the Bureau of Carbon Regulation levies carbon taxes on every financial transaction.

Maddie Ryan is a 24-year-old English teacher at a predominantly Black high school in Houston. Teaching is just a job for her; it pays the bills, and she lives for band practices with her queer punk band, Bunny Bloodlust.

When Maddie learns that the neighborhood where she teaches and her band plays is to be sacrificed for a new electromagnetic hyperway out to the suburbs, she joins a Black-led organizing movement fighting for the neighborhood. At first, she’s only focused on keeping
her band together and getting closer to the band’s guitarist (and her crush) Red.

But working with Save the Eighth forces Maddie to reckon with the harm she has already done to the neighborhood—both as a resident of the gentrifying Lab and as a white teacher in a predominantly Black school.

When police respond to their protests with violence, the Lab becomes the epicenter of “The Free People’s Village”—an occupation that promises to be the birthplace of an anti-capitalist revolution.

In The Free People’s Village, Sim Kern dares to ask the question that many socialjustice-minded individuals have long grappled with: When justice comes knocking, will you be brave enough to answer?

Reviews

Goodreads review by Stitching on September 15, 2023

As per usual when I really, really love something I feel entirely inadequate to review it. I received an ARC of this book, I finished reading well ahead of publication date and yet here we are 3 days post publication date and I still haven't been able to string a coherent sentence that might entice......more

Goodreads review by KMart on August 03, 2023

Amazing. I need to stop crying and process this first, though. -- Updated review: In an alternate 2020, where Al Gore won the election and declared a War on Climate Change, Sim Kern's "The Free People's Village" presents a powerful narrative set in a transformed world that is no less bleak than our own......more

Goodreads review by Alicia on March 21, 2023

Are you ready to join the Revolution? I'll admit, I had no idea what to expect going into reading The Free People's Village. I have been following Sim Kern on TikTok for a while and knew that I loved their content. When they started organizing the Trans Rights Readathon, I wanted to participate in an......more

Goodreads review by Jude on May 18, 2023

Our main character, Maddie, is white woman who spends most of her time in a mainly black neighborhood in (an alternate timeline) Houston called the Eighth Ward, working as a high school teacher during the day and spending her evenings at an old warehouse turned punk space called The Lab. Disillusion......more

Goodreads review by Tory on June 23, 2023

[ARC] I read it in one day! If you like your cli-fi dystopias with punk-rock party houses and a lot of well-informed social commentary, then this is a great pick for you! The radical leftist/eat-the-rich vibes are *chef's kiss* It's an alternate history set in a world where Gore won in 2000 and direc......more