Wow Absolutely phenomenal. I meandered my way through this book much like the cast of characters meandered their way through the Impossibles. It took me a while to finish not but it wasn't because it was boring or slow. Life has been crazy lately (whose hasn't) and I kept having to pause in my reading because this story kept making me think about life and all the questions it posed about it. Cannot recommend this title enough to fans of reality-bending sci-fi. (And this is a wild rec but--if you've ever played and adored the video game Star Ocean: Til The End Of Time? You're going to love this too.)

I enjoyed the concept of this book, but it wasn’t the style for me. The perspectives were unique, but it was tough for me to feel invested and overall felt like it was dragging.

Well written, but not for me.

One of my favorite books I've read for my podcast Strong Sense of Place is 'Spoonbenders' by Daryl Gregory. I recommended it in our Chicago episode. It's a mischievous novel about a very unusual family with superhuman powers — one is psychic, another is a human lie detector, that kind of thing. Reading that, you're probably thinking sci-fi — and you're not wrong — but the superhero-y aspects are an action-packed trick to lure you into a heartwarming and very funny family story. Daryl Gregory's imagination is super fun, and he writes characters that nestle right into your heart.

All this time, I've kind of thought of this book and its author as unsung heroes. But I went poking around his website. Turns out, lots of people are aware of his writerly skills. He's been nominated for all the big sci-fi awards, he won the Shirley Jackson award, and his books have appeared on best fiction lists from NPR, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post.

His new one seems to be headed in that direction, too. It's 'When We Were Real,' a quirky road trip novel set in an alternate United States. In the world of the book, seven years ago, we were all informed that we were living in a simulation. Now, two long-time friends are reeling from a cancer diagnosis and decide to take one last road trip. They're going on a bus tour called 'North America's Impossibles' — it's a week-long romp through glitches, anomalies, and miracles that appeared on that fateful Announcement Day. And because this is Daryl Gregory, it's not just a riff on the classic road trip novel, it's also a fresh take on the Canterbury Tales. The other passengers are a motley crew that includes two nuns and a rabbi, a professor who ran from a murder scene, a pregnant influencer on a quest to make her child famous, and someone referred to in the first chapter as THE READER.

I read the first chapter and was immediately hooked — then cleared my schedule for a day to read this book in one go. Daryl Gregory took me on a big adventure, then kicked me in the teeth with feelings — just like he did in 'Spoonbenders' — and I loved it. Highly recommended.

I recommended this book in the April 4 episode of my podcast 'The Library of Lost Time' - https://strongsenseofplace.com/lolts/lolt-2025-04-04/

I’ve long thought of award-winning author Daryl Gregory as a writer’s writer. He’s not only hilarious, inventive and a hugely talented prose writer, but a master of craft. Lift the hood on any of Gregory’s books and you’ll learn a lot about how the engine of a novel should run.

Gregory’s latest novel is no different. When We Were Real (Saga Press, 2025) follows an unlikely group of travelers on a bus tour of America’s glitches—the anomalies that prove they’re living in a simulation. It’s been seven years since the Announcement (and ensuing Freakout) revealed their world is nothing but binary code. What can’t be fabricated, however, is the friendship between JP and Dulin. When JP learns his cancer has returned, Dulin takes him on this week-long tour. Among the modern-day pilgrims on the Canterbury Trails Tours (get it?) are a pregnant influencer determined to make her child so famous he’ll never be deleted, a conspiracy theorist, a nun questioning the existence of God, and a professor on the run from a cult that takes The Matrix as gospel.

As the diverse cast of nineteen travelers barrels from glitch to glitch, Gregory dives deep into what makes each of these simulated humans tick. Even in this virtual world, these characters and their most basic human needs—connection, meaning, love—shine through, making this novel a delightful and heartwarming success. [Interview follows.]

Thank you to S&S/Saga Press and NetGalley for the advance reader’s copy.

This was FASCINATING. I love a good scifi/dystopian novel and this really hit the spot. I recommend going in a little blind and letting this book take you on its own wild ride!

Seven years after The Announcement that the world they are living in is a simulation, best friends JP and Duelin take a week-long bus tour to see all of North America's Impossibles. The Impossibles are a mix of physics-defying glitches and geographic anomalies that started showing up after The Announcement. JP and Duelin set off on The Canterbury Trails tour with their fellow passengers, a mix of 21st century pilgrims. All of them have their own reasons for joining the tour and they will have to face their own struggles along the way, as well as survive the threat of a group of sociopaths that take The Matrix as scripture, as they travel to their final destination, Ghost City.

When We Were Real is definitely an intriguing sci-fi story, with a variety of quirky, weird characters, and I loved it! Gregory explores the questions of science, faith, and messy human relationships. There is also a great level of suspense in the book, with The Professor's character, and the work she has been a part of and how she is trying to make things better for the future.

I found that I enjoyed the different stories, for each of the characters, the most. It was interesting to see all of their different personalities and individual struggles, and how they navigated relationships with their fellow passengers. The Impossibles were also a fun element in the story, as a kind of parallel to the Seven Wonders of the World. My favorite Impossible stop on the tour, was definitely the Hollow Flock.

The book also deals with heavy topics such as free will, the future of AI, the meaning of life, and creation. There is definitely a lot of thought-provoking questions and scenarios throughout the story.

I did find some parts or references in the story to be a bit confusing. And I also found myself wishing for a bit more information/resolution for all of the characters at the end of the book. After spending so much time with each of them, I was looking for a bit more of a conclusion to some of their storylines.

Overall, When We Were Real is a fascinating sci-fi story, that I definitely recommend if you love quirky characters, humor mixed with heavy hitting moments, and what it means to be human.

A funny, heartwarming, feel good story of friends, old and new! I enjoyed the different POVs and being able to see the world through each character’s eyes. I loved the mixture of contemporary fiction with the sci-fi element of everything we thought we knew being a simulation. An interesting concept that was executed well! This wouldn’t normally be on my radar so I’m extremely grateful that Saga Press sent me a copy to indulge in.

I’m going to be real honest here and say that I have no idea what was going on in this book 😂.

There were so many characters, they were all a little quirky, everyone was on a bus tour. There was an announcement years before that everything was actually a simulation, and there were bots running everything?

And all these people on the bus tour were going to see the glitches? There’s a zipper? A tunnel where you go through and time stops outside the tunnel but goes on in the tunnel and everyone sees something differently.

Like, this is one of those books where I feel like maybe I’m not smart enough to get the bigger picture. Or if I read it at another time I’d get it. I was following along at parts and then it lost me, and the end got so chaotic? Like the final 20% was just, what even was happening there was this sheep?! And just SO MANY characters.

The cover of this book is just so pretty. I will say that 😂. I don’t even know. Read the synopsis and decide whether you’d like to dive in. It’s for a 4 star rating on Goodreads so ya know what someone got it just wasn’t me 😂. I’ll still give it a 3 though cause sometimes it was a funny mess 😂.

Thank you @netgalley and @sagapressbooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Cool concept and definitely going to be a hit with certain audiences. I'm not that audience but that's my problem. Nothing about this book.

I’ve been thinking that it was time for a Gregory when I heard about his upcoming release. He’s on my shortlist of favorite authors, but the interesting thing about that is how generally reluctant I am to re-read his books. Though he is particularly good at bringing characters to life in emotional ways, they often go through a hard path to the moment of catharsis. For me his works are theoretically re-readable due to quality and complexity, but in real life, I’ve only re read Afterparty and We Are All Completely Fine. Thankfully, he’s been a slow but steady publisher so I can enjoy his style in new stories.

Gregory, you say. Who is he? Oh, you know, one of those wildly undervalued authors–at least commercially–who has had his works nominated for Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Awards, so clearly people in the know are paying attention. He’s readable, with a tone that feels almost humorous at times, until the character has his heart wrenched out. He writes, in an interesting way, about the now, and I’ve come to think of him as a zeitgeist author. Not in a bad, topical surface way, with works that won’t make much sense in a decade, let alone this year, but in an ‘understand the moment’ kind of way. He’s done that again with When We Were Real. You should probably read it if you like to think about online life and what makes us human.

I hesitate to say much about the story, because I think it’s deliciousness is in the unfolding. Save to say that, of course, the blurb gets it partially wrong. If you know anything about The Canterbury Tales–and I didn’t know much, but Wikipedia helped me along–is that it is a story of a journey, both real and philosophical, told from multiple points of view. Gregory bows to convention enough to tie them together with a head-scratching plot. But much like The Last Policeman, the story is in how the individual is choosing to cope with The Event. Oh, The Event, you say? That we’re living in The Matrix. As I said, a zeitgeist author.

I love the tongue-in-cheek tone, just wry enough to make me smile, and sometimes wince:

About JP, one of our travelers: “A year ago he had a bout with brain cancer, and took early retirement in the same way a boxer takes an unguarded uppercut. Out by TKO.”

About the nurse on the trip: “This one is divorced with no children, a crime punishable, evidently, with a lifetime sentence of unpaid chaperoning.” Ouch. Stop seeing me.

And just to make sure the reader understands their own role: “A person we’ll call THE READER is sitting quietly, turning the pages of their book… they’re here now, and happy to ignore the other passengers, as if everything they need to know is encoded in the sentences on the page.”

Yep. Pretty brilliant. In my own thoughts, I think it got a little bananas at the end, and then he had the nerve to go and make me sad. Still, super-creative–particularly the North American Impossibles, the local attractions that prove the Simulation. Highly recommended, and highly re-readable. But first, I’m going to go re-read We Are All Completely Fine.

Four and a half sheep, rounding up.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy for review.

I loved this book. Had a bit of everything; dystopian world where we’re living in a simulation, strange, but familiar world, awesome cast of characters.

Everyone in the world wakes up to the same message: You are living in a simulation.

A bus load of tourists are on a tour of all the “impossibles” in strange anomalies that pop due to the simulation. My favorite impossible is the Tunnel; people can only enter alone and time completely stops while someone is inside the tunnel.

A lot of characters, but all were really well developed. I loved them all; even the ones that were problematic.

I’d read more books from this universe. One of my favorite reads of the year!

These are the kind of books I enjoy. This book is the definition of escape. Road trip story with lots of eccentric characters. Don't read if you don't have an imagination and enjoy magical realism. Fun book. Will continue to enjoy Darryl Gregory's strange brain. A new favorite!
A 2025 road trip book for the ages. " On The Road for the woke."

A must read! I loved this book. Matrix mixed with The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and On The Road.
Makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you think.

Overall, it was a smart and funny story about a group of people on a bus tour to see glitches (North America’s “Impossibles”) after it was announced that we were living in a simulation.

Once I got through the first chapter—where majority of the characters were introduced all at once—it became a fun read. At times, my mind wandered due to the number of characters and storylines, which made it a bit hard to follow.

Thank you to S&S/Saga Press and NetGalley for the advance reader’s copy.

2 stars

This book is not for me. Based on the ratings, there are lots of people that really enjoyed it. I DNF’d at 45%. Since I didn’t finish it, I’m not giving it a star rating on here.

I thought this book was going to be plot heavy based on the synopsis and it’s very character heavy - & there are about 10 characters.

This story is also very vulgar. It felt unnecessary and didn’t add anything to the story.

Read if you enjoy:
🎥 The Matrix movie
🤳 Influencers/Social Media
🤬 Adults behaving badly
🌏 The search for the purpose of life (in a sense)

This one is out now. Thank you to NetGalley & Saga Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had really enjoyed Gregory’s Spoonbenders (2017) and I was very excited for this one. I don’t even know how to describe it, all I can say is it was a wild trip. There are a lot of characters on this crazy bus ride and I was really impressed with how Gregory handled building them, how they all played into the story and how they managed to drive some of the points Gregory was making. The “glitches” and the concepts were creative. While what reality is, is a core question of the novel, the existentialism is filtered through very humorous writing. Despite it being some 400+ pages, I flew through it, all with a grin on my face. I recommend this to anyone in need of a chaotic and entertaining read.

I figured I'd like this book, a story of a group of strangers going on a road trip across America a few years after they've been told that their world is actually a simulation. I ended up loving this book, a story of cruces of friendships, found family, consequences of impulsiveness, being chronically online, and reckoning with mortality and grief.

The story may seem overwhelming at first, with so many characters and being thrown into a new world. But the characters get fleshed out over time, things come together, and even if the character doesn't have a ton of them-focused time, they still manage to be thought-through. There isn't a part of this book that isn't necessary for the story in my opinion, and I thought that was great. I even had a surprise bawlfest for a hot second near the end. Like I've implied, there is a lot going on, and probably someone for any reader to begin to identify with.

In conclusion, I loved it. Such a good story.

Thanks to S&S Saga Press and Netgalley for the e-ARC.

This was a trip- literally and figuratively. We meet a group of folks who are heading out to visit... well, it's sort of like the Seven Wonders of the World, but more like The Weirdest Junk in the Simulated World. Basically, these are glitches that make no sense, but are proof that the world is no longer "real". And so, there are tour companies making bank taking folks on tours there, because of course there are.

We follow a very motley crew on this bus trip- two nuns and a rabbi (the jokes practically write themselves), two middle-aged male besties, a pregnant teen influencer, a podcaster and his reluctant son, a loner, and a group of randy octogenarians. They all have reasons for being on this trip, which is lead by a tour guide who has never guided, and a bus driver who is just... over it. And then someone else joins the band, and the whole thing goes from strange to bonkers.

This is a really fun journey, getting to know all these passengers. They are all grappling with the whole "world being fake" thing, which is entertaining, and also a lot of very heavy life stuff, which is less fun but also very poignant. There are also a lot of exciting moments on the journey too, lest you think it is too slow. Overall, it was a really fun adventure!

Bottom Line: A quirky, entertaining road trip with some very cool twists and incredible characters!

absurdist and really interesting. well written throughout and generally pretty good! the characters are cool and the attractions are fun. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

An engineer, a comic book writer, a rabbi, a nun, two wannabe influencers, and four horny octogenarians get on a bus. These modern pilgrims are traveling to see the Impossibles that cropped up after they learned that they're living in a simulation. A tale both hilarious and heartwarming; a can't-miss modern fairy tale.

A lot of characters in this book and at first,
I had to make a card to keep them straight. JP, although the main character (I'm guessing because we curcle back to him at the end), gets lost in the cast. I was very invested to here more about Sister Janet's experience in the tunnel, but it was kind of glossed over. She took care of the forest... ok, for years! Let's talk more about her day to day in the Tunnel. Don't understand where Chet from CET brought Margaret at the end. Deletion? Another lab? Prison?
Lots of loose ends and some technical programing lingo I had to look up.