She Treads Softly: Hum

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Hum

Hum by Helen Phillips
8/6/24; 272 pages
Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci Books

Hum by Helen Phillips is a highly recommended speculative thriller which focuses on the potential effect of artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change in a dystopian future.

May Webb and her husband Jem have two elementary school aged children, Lu and Sy, and are struggling to make ends meet after May lost her job to AI. May undergoes an operation that alters her face so she is not immediately recognizable by AI surveillance software and is paid the equivalent of 10 months of her previous salary.

She decides to splurge on 3 day passes inside the Botanical Garden for her whole family. It is an extravagant vacation into a lush, green paradise. She tells her children that they must all leave their devices/phones behind, including the children's devices called bunnies. When her children go missing and cannot be tracked by their bunnies she is forced to turn to a hum, an AI robot, for help, which only makes things worse.

May's fight for her family in this world full of AI and constant commercials/ads is a frightening portrait and caution of a dystopian future. Already many are at the mercy of their devices and are unable to set them aside. This novel multiplies that current trend. The writing is precise without a lot of extra adornment, but it captures May's internal plight with compassion and sensitivity. It also portrays motherhood and a loving family realistically as they navigate life in this future.

Hum would actually make a better movie than novel, something I never thought I'd say as books are generally better, however, there are moments in the novel that would make a huge impact visually. It is impactful as a novel, but much more could be done with it as a movie. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.