What would you do if you were told you only had weeks to live? How about if you are told EVERYONE only has weeks to live? Contract worker Myrra (indentured servant) is told by her "employers" that the world is ending and "The World Gives Way" is the story of what happens next. It has the flavor of Logans Run crossed with Thelma and Louise. Characters are very well written and believable. Some great turns of phrase. I wasn't totally enamored with the last few chapters (once Myrra and Tobias reach the hull). At that point the believability dropped and there were scenes written didn't fit the rest of the narrative (the workers at the hull are dirty and underfed...and yet there is a full disco with dance booth and DJ normally paid for by the state? The day/night cycles aren't run by a computer program but manually operated by workers??). Overall I enjoyed the book and was impressed that the writing made me want to finish the story even though I knew everyone was going to die at the end.

Very solid sci-fi with all of the elements of a great story. This is engaging and emotional, and includes crafted characters. This is a very impressive debut, and a tale I'll probably remember for a while.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

A story of revolution and rebellion set in the future. Great writing, really enjoyed this one - the ending was a bit hard to take but it was a good story nonetheless.

It launched off the planet generations ago-it would take two centuries to get to Telos, a new inhabitable planet. "Inside the ship (the world) there is a sky,...cities and landscapes, immaculately designed." "This new world was entirely populated by the wealthy, maintaining a lifestyle that they thought they were owed."

Imogene and Marcus Carlyle's penthouse in New London was a "three-story feat of opulence...an easy nonverbal reminder that they had secured a permanent place at the top of the food chain." As a honeymoon present, Marcus purchased Myrra Dal's maid contract. "In fifty years, Myrra would be free...the work contract her great-grandmother had signed would finally be fulfilled...Working for the Carlyles, she had more freedom then she'd had in the laundry or in factories. But there was still always the invisible leash...".

"Something was wrong with the world. The ship." Top scientists and physicists studying and charting the integrity of the ship's hull had determined that a widening crack was irreversible. Neither Imogene nor Marcus Carlyle wanted to witness the implosion of the ship. Myrra was asked to continue to care for baby Charlotte. Myrra refused to wait and only get what she would be given when her contract expired.

Security agents investigating the demise of the Carlyles searched for Myrra Dal. Was foul play involved? Where was Charlotte? Was she kidnapped? Myrra was on the lam, thereby, breaking her contract. She hoped to outrun the devastation she knew was coming. A baby in tow would slow down her quest for freedom and make her visible to the security agents tasked with bringing her to justice. "Charlotte was a liability. She needed to leave her behind...She wondered what would reach her first, security or the end of the world."

Tobias Bendel, security agent, came from a wealthy background...visiting tropical resorts and mountain retreats. He had an "...odd fly-by-night life with his parents and the stern upbringing of Barnes..." after his criminal parents were jailed. Tobias "...liked the balance that order gave to chaos-the presence of efficiency and stability." His goal was to prove himself to Barnes, the top security chief and Tobias's adoptive father.

"The World Gives Way" by Marissa Levien transports the reader to the various cities built on the ship (the world). With lush descriptions, the topography and distinctive "flavor" of each city comes to life. Will Myrra be able to outsmart Tobias and avoid capture? As a series of earthquakes occur and the cracks in the hull deepen, can an escape plan work? Perhaps hard core sci-fi readers would not be as captivated as I was. That said, I loved this tome!

Thank you Redhook Books and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve been wanting to read more science fiction novels this year, and books like this are exactly why.
This takes hold of you right away. The characters, the world, it’s all fantastic. I felt as though each of these characters were real and I was rooting for them all.
It’s sci fi, yes, but it’s also so much beyond that.
The ending was quiet, and might not please every reader, but I enjoyed it.

I quite enjoyed this book. The ending was what I expected, and yet not quite. I loved watching the characters develop and grow and I thought it was beautifully done. I will for sure be reading whatever else this author writes.

Once upon a time the world was round and you could go on it around and around * and then it became something different entirely. A universe all too contained and suddenly coming undone. And in it a young woman contracted as a maid, fleeing a double suicide of her employers tries to find her way to something like safety or maybe just solace.
Myrra is twenty five and she has been under a labor contact for most of her life, a fifty year contract that can be bought and sold, like so many of her social class. Because the world she lives in is extremely socially divided into approximately three strata, the megawealthy, the workers, and everyone inbetween. Myrra was born into the first stratum, her employers were very much of the second one and Tobias, the Security forces worker who is tasked with finding Myrra, was born into money, but eventually adopted and raised in the inbetween class, comfortable, but not obscenely so. Due to his divided upbringing, he has becoming a methodical precise ambitious man, someone who wants to excel and prove himself to the world and to his beloved adopted father who is also his boss as the chief of Security.
But this is neither a crime novel nor a chase novel. In fact, once you learn the reasons for Myrra’s leaving and you will in the end of first chapter, you’ll know exactly what kind of story this is. Frustratingly enough, the description doesn’t give away too much, so I don’t think I can either, but suffice it to say, whatever kind of story you think it might be…it is magnificent.
Every so often the book just hits you right, the words reach out from the pages, grab you and don’t let go. It’s a terrific rush, the sort of thing a reader always looks for and seldom finds and this book did just that. From the very first chapter, it transported, teleported, threw me into a distant, strange and tragic world. And I didn’t want to leave, though leaving is kind of one of the main themes here.
You can tell, though, what’s coming. The title promises as much. The world goes round and around until it no longer can. And this novel is appropriately elegiac without reserving to being moribund. It’s more about the endings than beginnings, but it is a thing of beauty to behold for all its inherent sadness.
It’s a debut that gets every single thing right from creating terrific, compelling, memorable characters to spectacular intricate worldbuilding to gorgeously engaging narrative. I absolutely loved it. Being a fan of dystopian fiction, I do have a pretty wide field of comparison, but this book is too good for all that, it is very much a thing of its own.
So if you read thus far you already got the idea that this is a book worth checking out. Please do. And walk away now, because I want to say something things about the ending.
OK? Ok then…
So no happy ending here, not a conventional one. That’s a brave thing in this world of contrived performative collective cheer and I salute it. And sure, I’ve come to care so much about the characters and sure I wanted them to somehow find a magic way out, but at the same time I completely understand and appreciate the ending the author chose. This is, after all, a novel about the world giving way. Because this world itself a stunningly hubristic venture into the indifferent darkness of space, this world’s trajectory was that of an Icarus’ flight. Ambition or arrogance dwarfed by impossible circumstances, chance, brutally random twist of fate. Les like fiction, more like life.
A cheaper, more commercially minded way to end this would have the three of them finding a shuttle, making to Telos, living happily ever after. In fact, there’d be at least one sequel too. It would have been fine, but it wouldn’t have been right. And it wouldn’t have poignant. And it wouldn’t have been memorable. This is the way that world ends…it’s the end of the world and they know it…and they are fine. In fact, approaching something like peace, something like grace.
So that’s the novel and all my notions and thoughts about it. It’s an excellent read, I absolutely loved it. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

* Gertrude Stein, from Myrra's favorite book

I don't think this is a book I would have picked up had I not received an ARC, so this was a really enjoyable surprise.

I went into this thinking it was going to be a classic dystopian novel, but it reminded me a lot of ‘They Both Die at the End’ in so many ways. And because the focus of the story is on finding human connection in the darkest of moments, the sci-fi aspect of the novel takes a backseat. And I honestly didn't mind that.

I enjoyed the writing as it prompts a range of emotions. The characters feel real and are wholly relatable. And the ending of the story is quiet one, but wow, it fits the tone of the story perfectly.

This is a really great debut and has put ML on my radar of authors to watch.

This was somewhere between 2-3 stars for me, rounded up due to the solid writing. I'm not a big science fiction fan and some aspects of this novel were hard for me to grasp. It was also one of those books where I wanted a different ending but at the same time the ending was fitting for the novel.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I Can't Stop Thinking About This Book! I am so excited for this book to be released. I finished an advance copy from Orbit this month, and it quickly became one of my top five favorite books ever! Not sure how I'm going to last until June without talking about it to anyone else....

Incredibly moving and vivid, this story is as if "Seeking A Friend for the End of the World" began as a police procedural. The world Levien builds is so compassionate, imaginative, and, even though it takes place on a ship 150 years away from Earth, so identifiable in its humanity. This is a very accessible read to anyone who doesn't normally read science fiction or would normally shy away from a "space book". Highly recommend!

I started this book intrigued by the world described. As the plot progressed it became gripping. Characters I cared about and a fully fleshed environment. The ending was a surprise, No miraculous salvation but satisfying.
As a long time science fiction reader the enormous space ship is a major stretch, but in the end it didn’t matter.
All in all, I really loved it and anticipate Levien’s next novel.