I have not read a dystopian in far too long, and I'm so glad I was able to pick up The Warehouse. It tells of a not so distant future where one company practically controls everything. I love the details in this story and how very real it all feels. My only issue was the ending, it certainly left me wanting more, which may have been the authors intent. If you're looking for a book that is eerily close to our world now, don't miss this one.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and review this book!

The Warehouse by Rob Hart is a dystopian novel that reads as a cautionary tale of what happens when big business has too much influence and control. The story is told through the viewpoints of Paxton, a security officer at Cloud, Zinnia, a corporate spy who is working as an order picker, and Gibson, founder and CEO of Cloud.

The world has basically become a wasteland as Cloud has put most businesses and citizens into bankruptcy. The world is also plagued by overpopulation and damage from climate change. The main option for relief people have from poverty and the unsettled climate is to find employment with Cloud (its not hard to figure out what company Cloud is based on.)

Not only do you work at Cloud, but you also live there too. There are dormitories on site, as well as a hospital, restaurants, movie theatre. Its basically an entire town, except here, you are constantly monitored by watches that you must have on at all times, except when the battery is being recharged. The workers are rated on a 5 star scale and strive to stay at 4 stars and above. However taking a day off for illness, is an example of how one's rating can drop.

We see through the eyes of Gibson how Cloud sprouted from an idea into basically the world's biggest and most powerful company. Through Paxton and Zinnia's viewpoints, we discover what brings them to Cloud and how working there and the constant monitoring impacts them physically and emotionally. We also see this through the eyes of secondary and minor characters.

This is an excellent and also frightening story, when you look at how the world is today. This is something that while fictional, isn't too far fetched in today's reality. The characters are well rounded and you grow attached quite easily to both Paxton and Zinnia. The plot is well drawn out and the pacing is excellent. If you want a thrilling dystopian novel with hints of espionage that is hard to put down, this is the one for you!

My appreciation to NetGalley, Rob Hart, and Crown for gifting me an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

"Remember, freedom is yours until you give it up"

If ever there was a book that perfectly captured the predicaments of our modern times, it would be The Warehouse by Rob Hart. We face a time of massive technological advancement, political divisiveness, and the ever-mounting threat of a global climate crisis. With the reality of huge economic and social challenges looming over us, it seems as if we have turned inward to the technology that has become an essential piece of our day to day lives. In The Warehouse, Rob Hart imagines a not-too-distant future in which the above-mentioned instances have come to fruition.

A group of people is on a bus headed to one of the massive campuses that house Cloud. Cloud is the giant corporate conglomerate that has innovated its way to becoming the single largest means of commerce in the world. Think Amazon but on a much larger scale. At this point in history, Cloud is the singular provider of all consumer goods and most of the world's employment. Drones fill the sky delivering everything from bandaids to groceries. Each cloud campus has become a city of its own, housing all of the company's employees. If you work at could, you work, eat, and sleep on campus. Each person on this bus hopes to become part of Cloud's extensive ecosystem.

Two of the hopeful new recruits are Zennia and Patton. Patton has reluctantly decided to apply for a job with Cloud after his own small business was overtaken by the company. If you can't beat them, you might as well join them. Patton hopes to earn enough working for the company to eventually file for a new patent and become his own boss again. With the all-encompassing nature of Cloud, this will be extremely difficult to achieve. Zennia is much more reserved than Patton. She reluctantly reveals that she was a teacher before packing up her life to pursue a career at Cloud. Little does Patton know that Zennia is on a much more nefarious mission, the kind that could get them both killed.

When the publisher offered me a copy of The Warehouse to review, I was immediately drawn by the premise. Echoes of Eggers's The Circle and Orwell's 1984 ring through Hart's book. Hart roots his speculative fiction into a thriller that gives the narrative a momentum that helped to keep me engaged in the world he was building. Alternating perspectives between the two main characters give the reader insights into their motivations and makes the back and forth between the two all the more riveting. Interspersed between the main chapters are journal entries of Cloud's founder and CEO. With these, Hart illustrates the precarious balance between the well-intentions of large companies and the darker reality of what actually happens within them. The Warehouse is one of the most compelling books that I've read this year, a cautionary tale for our times that is an essential read for everyone.

This dystopian thriller with shades of Kafka and Frank Norris’s The Octopus centers on a bloated industrial empire in which merchandise of all kinds is stored, picked, packaged, and delivered via drones. The vast complex, set in a desert 100 miles from the nearest town, is not only the workplace for thousands, but its living quarters, medical, food, and recreational facilities. It’s all presided over by an avuncular “old white dude” who prides himself on having passed legislation to outlaw unions, do away with worker safety, and so forth, all under the guise of providing environmentally clean delivery of goods and great jobs for anyone willing to work hard. The true “MotherCloud” warehouse complex is anything but utopian. Work, especially for the “pickers,” is unrelentingly brutal, and security turns a blind eye to sexual harassment and other crimes for the sake of good reporting statistics. The enclosed environment, although air conditioned, is monotonous and humdrum, with few choices beyond soporific entertainment, alcohol, and illegal drugs.

Into this world come two applicants. John is an ex-prison guard whose dream of independent entrepreneurship came to a screeching halt with “The Cloud” stole his invention. He hopes to work anywhere but security, but that’s his assignment. Zinnia presents as a bright young teacher, taking time off to earn extra cash, but she is actually a corporate spy, hired to find out why the MotherCloud uses so much less energy than it actually requires. The mind-numbing work changes each of them.

Scathing condemnation of computerized factory life and its dehumanizing brutality, along with the naïve blindness of the privileged few, makes this book a stand-out for thoughtful political science fiction. If you aren’t outraged, you’re not paying attention.

This was an interesting but somewhat harrowing read. I will revisit it in the future, but it was just a little too grim for me right now. This book also made me a little afraid of Amazon...

This review is so overdue that I would be banned if it was a library book. Therefore, I am going to keep my opinions short and sweet (well….as sweet as possible). This review will be based on what I remember and some notes taken while reading.

So like just say it, Rob….This story is basically about Amazon taking over the world.

Imagine: A powerhouse like Amazon (or Disney) becoming more and more powerful. So powerful that the government has found themselves with no control as the almighty corporation expands at an infinite rate. A corporation so powerful they have deemed the government essentially useless and can now abide by their own laws. Laws built on greed with little regard for anything or anyone else…..

Is it just me or is this kind of scary to imagine? Why are dystopian novels becoming so damn realistic?

Rob Hart has created a terrifying near future novel. I hear it is reminiscent of 1984, but I wouldn’t know since I’ve never had the pleasure of reading it. That being said, I really enjoyed the idea overall with a new age spin on it. But Hart had some short comings. Let’s discuss…

Short coming 1: The Cloud has taken over the world. The world is pretty bleak. And these MF can’t discover technology more advanced than a fu**ing USB. Hart took an unoriginal idea and couldn’t manage any creative, inventive near future technology? His world was advanced so greatly that beef is out of the question on the affordability scale but no newer technology than a fu**ing USB!?!? As an IT professional, I about lost my mind with the lack of effort here. It kind of stole his credibility on the whole new age world selling point. Again with the runners job. Library’s now have robots essentially that will move shelves and pull the specific book off the shelf. Hart really does lack any imagination when it comes to technical advancement. He really didn’t seem to put much inventive effort into the future.

Short Coming 2: There are some areas of sexual abuse and harassment through out this novel. Rob Hart wrote from a female perspective and did an absolute shit job (in my opinion). He referred to a girl who was upset after being forced into an awful sexual situation as “whiney bullshit”. Just to give you an accurate depiction of my feelings, here are raw notes from this reading:

“Who the fuck do you think you are, Rob Hart? Do I understand the point of don’t let this monster ruin your life? Yes. But this author clearly has some brass balls to refer to a girl handling sexual assault as whiney bullshit. I’d honestly punch this author in his wiener if I ever met him. And ask him not to whine about the bullshit.”

And that is all I have to say about that.

Overall, this story is interesting. There were times when I was a touch bored. And majorly disappointed in the creativity. Therefore, I gave this novel 3.5 stars rounded to 4 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a copy of this novel.

Ooooph! This book hit me in the feels and made me think more carefully about what I buy from Amazon.


The Warehouse was an interesting look into what could happen in the future if we let big box retailers sell everything and take full control. I liked the plot and found the characters well rounded and realised. The romance made sense, but didn't add to the story really.

I wanted more of a look into the world outside the warehouse and it's living quarters though. Also, when the story ended I was left with too many questions because it was so open ended. I still enjoyed the book and would recommend it though.

3.5 stars!

The Warehouse
Book Review | 📚📚📚📚1/2 4.5/5
Rob Hart | Crown Publishing

Our world is catching up with cyber-fiction. That’s not good, or is it? Revenge, opportunity, drugs, Big Brother to the 10th power; this is Utopia? This is the thriller that needs to be read.

Why I was interested in this book:
Lately, I’ve been fascinated and fearful of how technology has just creeped into our lives where we are glued to our devices, glued to our screens at work, glued to our screens at home to watch shows, and take for granted how easy it is to shop, research, socialize, explore or be entertained through these same outlets. Utopian societies have always been what we strive to create. But efforts to create a world of perfection, ease and comfort always seem to turn dystopian. The Warehouse, by Rob Hart, explores these ideals and outcomes. Oh, and it’s a love story, too. Sort of.

My assessment:
I was relieved to read this book. It allowed my growing paranoia that our technology is using and controlling us for its gain to be confirmed. Perhaps being relieved is not the right feeling. I’m relieved that others are having the same thoughts as me. And Hart’s book addresses these issues. What I really valued from the book is how he intermixed within the action story, a biography from the Bill Gates- or Steve Jobs-type innovator who has changed the parameters of our society for the benefit of ease and comfort, but for the sake of individual choice. That character’s testimonies make sense and I tended to understand his justifications.

The book was a very fast read. There were several characters that had their own stories being told and at some point most of these characters come together (which makes sense!). I wasn’t sure how the story would conclude and Hart did a decent job with the ending.

Stories of the human condition:
As I mentioned above, this book can really be looked at as a social commentary of where we are headed if Amazon, Google, Apple and other technology giants decided to really ramp up their “services”. The impresario of the Cloud makes solid arguments for the decisions he’s made and the sacrifices everyday people, or consumers, will make. The individual characters in the story all represent how this transition of power and choice affect us as individuals, a community and a race. There are stories of power imbalance, hopelessness, isolation, loss of control and friendship – all in relation to the dystopian shift in consumer/human culture.

Sound scary? Read this book and be entertained and horrified. Especially if you read it on an electronic device. You’ve been warned!

Full disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley(dot)com in exchange for an honest review. I would not have selected this book had I not been interested in it based on the description.

Read more of my reviews at https://tugglegrassblues.wordpress.com/.

TAGS:
#TheWarehouse #review-book #book review #Utopia #Dystopia #UtopiaDystopia #Crown Publishing #RobHart #TuggleGrassBlues #Tuggle Grass Reviews #TuggleGrassReviews #NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this e-book ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was already published, but I am glad that I was able to read the e-book.

This book isn't in my normal reading wheelhouse, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. As a solid 3.5, this dystopian novel, similar to George Orwell's 1984, tells of a future where technology controls all aspects of life. This idea is not far off as our society is experiencing that to some degree today. It is a very interesting read since it warns of what could happen if technology falls into the wrong hands and is exploited and used for the wrong reasons. Hart uses things that we already use on a daily basis such as phones, watches etc. to tell his narrative and caution us against what could potentially await us if we let technology control our lives.

Thank you NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC of The Warehouse by Rob Hart in exchange for an honest review. This book is set in the future and tells the stories of three people: Gipson (the owner of the Cloud), Paxton (person who lost his start up business to the cloud) and Zinnia (undercover espionage mission), The story is about The Warehouse, provider of everything to consumers. Amazon comes to mind when reading this. In our quest for the cheapest goods, we have allowed Amazon to put other businesses out of business. In this future version of the world portrayed in "The Warehouse" money is no longer the currency and people are desperate for any work, even if it means wearing themselves ragged to keep up their star rating to keep their job. There are many similarities in the book to current trends. The movements of employees of The Warehouse are tracked at all times. Current day privacy concerns are often in the news. It is easy to see how we have become complacent with losing our privacy and people losing their jobs. This book will leave you thinking about the technologies and businesses you have accepted into your life.

This book was great! A near-future dystopian romp that examines consumerism, and how big corporations might play a part in our declining future.

There’s a lot that really worked about the book, and at the top of that list is the future Hart created. It’s frightening how believable it is. Perfect enough for me to give my amazon prime membership a solid side-eye.

The characters are also great, I found both Paxton and Zinnia compelling and relatable, and I especially enjoyed how their relationship unfolded. The format of the book was also great, I especially loved the way the repetition of the days was shared, and the idea of big corporations building cities to house their workers—and how the separation between work and home could impact the mental health of works.

Overall, I thought this book was fantastic, and have subjected more than a few people to excited rants about the questions it brings up. It’s fast-paced and thrilling to the last page, and I loved the way it ended.

I’d recommend it to anyone who loves near-future science fiction and thrillers, and wants to experience just a little bit of a insecurity over whether or not they can trust online shopping.

This was a great book, disturbing but great nonetheless. And if the Big Brother mega-company didn't put you in mind of Amazon, the go-to company for, well, practically everyone these days, then you just weren't paying attention. This could be us in a few years. We're halfway there. Scary stuff. Definitely recommend.

*ARC via netgalley*

Predictable and trying too hard. I’ve read books like this. Not a new concept. Try again and think of an original idea.

Our world is constantly changing. Not long ago, we did our shopping at small, family-run stores. That gave way to the convenience of big, impersonal retail chains. But with the growth of the Internet, brick-and-mortar stores gave way to online shopping. And author Rob Hart takes a look at what could be next in The Warehouse.

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery.

The Warehouse is a veer from my typical path of reading, but I'm glad I took the journey. This is a dystopian novel similar to 1984, of a not so far off future where technology essentially controls all aspects of life. It's a scary thought, but it was a very interesting look at where the world could end up should technology end up in the wrong hands and be used for the wrong reasons. I liked that this book includes elements of technology that we're already using: online shopping, smart watches/phones, and uses those to push the narrative.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

I received an e-arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, but the next day the book came out and my library got a copy so I'll be reviewing the published book here.

I'm still a little in shock so I'm just going to compile the notes I took while reading for this review. I may come back and edit later.

Compelling from the first page. There are so few books that after reading a page or two you know you have to read the whole thing - this is one of them.

Rob Hart is an amazing writer. Each character had a distinctly unique voice. The world building is also fantastic and the creepiness just sort of comes in unspoken and ever present.

Eerie and quotable.

Not relevant to where I'm at in the book, but pretty sure I'm going to need to own this one...

When I read reviews that said you'd see it everywhere and not be able to stop thinking about it, I thought that wouldn't happen to me. Even through the first say 150-200 pages, I didn't. But now, I sit here wearing my fitbit and considering ordering mundane things on Amazon and....it just really sneaks up on you. You **will** see the implications everywhere.

This story is told in three perspectives; three voices. They're completely unique. Each voice is so completely unique and distinct that you could open it up to any page and I could tell you which character is speaking. The way they see the world and the tone of the writing is so different. It's really pretty spectacular.

I've also been amazed by how much the author seems to understand about the experience of being a woman. The subtle things we deal with, the power dynamics, the decisions we make daily. I just want to commend him on that because I'm not sure I've ever seen a man understand that, let alone be able to weave it in to a story so seamlessly.

And my final comment on the ending: "that’s..that’s it?!?!?! That’s it? It’s just over like that? Oh. My. God. **screaming**"

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It will make you think while reading and long after you've put it down.

I kept sitting this one down and then picking it back up and then setting it back down and then picking it back up and then...

You get the picture.

It's a fantastic concept, and I think an important idea to put forward given the state of the world and where things seem to be heading. I appreciate the intent of offering a glimpse behind the curtain of what can happen when capitalism goes overboard and a monopoly becomes a mega-opoly. I assume that a lot of the monotony in the story is intentional, dragging you through the days of the characters as they struggle to live in the Cloud-controlled world, but it certainly does not make for an easy, enjoyable, or speedy read. I can appreciate that conceptually, but it doesn't make for a glowing recommendation...

I just never found myself able to connect with any of the characters, and when you add that to the monotonous tone, particularly for a book billed as a thriller, I found it a bit of a disappointment. To me this isn't a thriller, and it isn't a dark vision of the future, so much as a satiric look at what happens when capitalism is taken to the extreme.

I've seen comparisons to Animal Farm - to me, there is no comparison. Animal Farm was written as an engaging tale as well as a cautionary one. This felt entirely like the latter without much of the former. While it is definitely a thought-provoking and important consideration for our times, to me it did not exactly make for a compelling read...

A chilling, near-future representation of what our lives & country could easily be heading for. Every time Zinnia packed an item that I've personally ordered online, I got chills. My one small complaint is that this book follows the common trope of "fridging" multiple female characters, all in the pursuit of the lead male character's arc.

You know that fear that one day we'll all wake up to Amazon controlling every part of our lives in all the ways we feared big brother Google would? Take this to the level.

THIS IS THAT BOOK. Seriously....never felt more engaged in a story and utterly terrified by its premise. The Cloud is the biggest company around, making it possible for people to never leave their home for anything. Why venture out when they'll do everything for you, right? After a bunch of Black Friday Massacres, it seems like a pretty good idea anyways. To top it off, anyone working for The Cloud LIVE there. So it's really creepy and that kept my attention...how scarily possible this was (considering I don't even leave my house for groceries anymore).

Overall, I loved it. Personally, I would have tagged this as a science fiction/dystopian rather than General Fiction/Thrillers/Mystery.....because that's what it was.

I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

Warehouse very vividly imagines a dystopia where climate change, retail dominance, and profit squeezing trends combine to create one massive online, drone delivering corporation called Cloud, whose distribution center/climate bubble/employee dorm/panopticons have become effectively the only places to live and work. They are also pseudo governments, with their own security force that is effectively the only law or government in town.

The story follows two new recruits with ulterior motives -- a corporate spy and an out-maneuvered inventory -- as they come to Cloud, get assigned to jobs, and get subsumed into the culture full of surveillance, ratings, and day-to-day obsessions that gradually impair their ability to imagine any other way of life.

We also get glimpses of the dying founder, as he blogs and tours Cloud facilities, reminisces about how he got to where he is and the many controversies that got washed over, forgotten, or spun like the various big tech scandals over privacy, pay, censorship, etc. in the real world.

The characters and plot twists are very compelling. There are definitely a few loose ends and complications that may have been intentional to show the complexity of these types of leaders, or may have been inadvertent.

Either way, it's a fun and thought-provoking story about making sure to keep perspective that the reality around you may not be the only one, and knowing when resistance and questioning is appropriate.