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Sign up todayThe Shutouts
A Novel
Narrator
Gail Shalan
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Length
9 hours 57 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“The climate collapse is the backdrop of this character-driven sequel. You don’t need to read the prequel to read this riveting pageturner. Multiple plot lines converge in a brilliant manner. ”
— Jay • Bluestockings Cooperative
A brilliant queer dystopian novel from the author of Yours for the Taking, following a cast of characters on the margins of a strange and exclusive new society.
The year is 2041, and it's a dangerous time to be a woman driving across the United States alone. Deadly storms and uncontrollable wildfires are pummeling the country while political tensions are rising. But Kelly's on the road anyway; she desperately needs to get back to her daughter, who she left seven years ago for a cause that she's no longer sure she believes in.
Almost 40 years later, another mother, Ava, and her daughter Brook are on the run as well, from the climate change relief program known as The Inside Project, where they've spent the past 22 years being treated as lab rats. When they encounter a woman from Ava’s past on the side of the highway, the three continue on in a journey that will take them into the depths of what remains of humanity out in the wilderness.
At the same time, way up North, weather conditions continue to worsen and a settlement departs in search of greener pastures, leaving behind only two members, drawn together by a circumstance and a mystery they are destined to unravel together.
Set in the world of Gabrielle Korn's Yours for the Taking, The Shutouts tells the captivating story of those who have been shut out from Inside, their fight to survive, and an interconnectedness larger than all of them.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
GABRIELLE KORN is the author of Everybody (Else) Is Perfect and the former Editor-in-Chief of Nylon. She recently led LGBTQ+ strategy at Netflix, and her writing has been published across the internet since 2011, with bylines in Instyle, Coveteur, Autostraddle, Nylon, Refinery29, Oprah, and more. Originally from New York, she now lives in Los Angeles with her wife, and together they run The Pink Door artist and writer residency.
Reviews
Praise for The Shutouts:
Goodreads, Most Anticipated Books for Fall
Harper's Bazaar, Best Books to Read in Fall 2024
"[A] tense tale of climate collapse, survival, and conspiracies... The narrative is made harrowingly plausible by the author’s skillful exploration of alarming choices made by people in power and survivors’ attempts to forge communities. It’s another winner from Korn." —Publishers Weekly
“With The Shutouts, Gabrielle Korn has established herself as one of the brilliant dystopian writers of our generation. This book broke my heart but it also gave me immense hope. It made me cry and laugh and hug my babies and believe in people and in all the ways we take care of each other.” —Marisa Crane, author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
Praise for Yours For the Taking:
Harper’s Bazaar, The Best Queer Reads of 2023
Elle, Our Favorite Books of 2023
New York Times Best Books of December 2023
Los Angeles Times Best Books of December 2023
Women’s Health, LGBTQ+ Books That Make Queer People Feel Seen
LGBTQ+ Reads, Most Anticipated Adult Fiction
The Millions, Most Anticipated
"Korn manages to grapple with weighty topics while also delivering a compelling read, rife with twists." —Elle
"An alluring story of a feminist dystopia... Korn’s conceits are as provocative as her characters are well-rounded. Readers will eat up this distinctive work of climate fiction." —Publishers Weekly
"Korn's premise couldn't be more timely....this novel sparkles." —Kirkus Reviews
"An intriguing exploration of how 'saving the world' can become warped by ego and ideology. Korn’s timely fiction debut indicts exclusionary corporate feminism." —Library Journal
"An immersive, future-focused, and highly engaging thought experiment that’s startlingly relevant to today’s society." —Booklist
"Gatekeeping girlboss insidiousness, climate injustice and ecological inequality, love in the time of perpetual apocalypse—Korn’s thrilling work of speculative fiction, about billionaire-funded bubbles designed to seal off select people from inhospitable living conditions, trains a big, queer black mirror on the sociopolitical iniquities of our time." —Electric Literature
"Stunning...a bracing, exhilarating read." —Esmé Weijun Wang, New York Times bestselling author of The Collected Schizophrenias
"Thrilling...with exquisite worldbuilding and a cast of complicated, multifarious characters, Yours for the Taking is a spectacular saga about the folly of control and the inheritance of that folly." —Michelle Hart, author of We Do What We Do in the Dark
"Gabrielle Korn had me at feminist dystopia, but her layered, intriguing storytelling made the end of the world entirely her own. I stowed myself in a bunker and read Yours for the Taking in less than a day." —Amanda Montell, author of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
"A tender, thrilling, thoughtful examination of queer survival. Gabrielle Korn’s storytelling is engrossing as she paints a damning, clever portrait of the effects of exclusionary politics. Her debut novel is both a penetrating reflection of the anxiety modern generations face and a lesbian love story for the end of the world." —Jill Gutowitz, author of Girls Can Kiss Now
"A gripping page-turner about power and the consequences of inaction. Tender, wise, and achingly true-to-life, it is a haunting look at a possible future that feels entirely of the moment." —Camille Perri, author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy
"A startlingly realistic vision of where the climate crisis is taking us coupled with root rot in white girlboss feminism, Gabrielle Korn has imagined the defining feminist dystopia for our times. Yours for the Taking is a page-turner; its propulsive heat is matched only by the chills that come from realizing, as a reader, how close we are to the kind of world Korn so beautifully, and frighteningly, immerses us in. An electric, essential read. I couldn't put it down." —Jeanna Kadlec, author of Heretic
"Gabrielle Korn's debut fiction imagines a world that seems freakishly, frighteningly possible—no doubt because she's done such a fine job of creating characters that are vibrantly alive, and recognizable....A great, contemporary take on the classic what-would-an-all-female-society-look-like genre, full of suspense and fair warning." —Michelle Tea
"Beautiful, tender, and revelatory, this book took my breath away....I read it in one sitting and you will, too. A propulsive masterpiece and a queer reckoning." —Marisa Crane, author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
"Gabrielle Korn expertly weaves together a complex web of characters and texts from various perspectives and times to examine how it is idealism can so easily degrade, the effects of which are claustrophobic and chilling. Written with necessary urgency, Yours for the Taking presents a terrifying vision of the future, yet what courses through its center are the connections that form under these bleak conditions, the love that keeps us living." —Katie M. Flynn, author of The Companions
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