A Better World
A Novel
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4.1 • 7 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
One of NPR’s Best Books of 2024
For fans of Nightbitch and While No One Is Watching, comes “one of the best books this year, or any year” (Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World)—a disturbing dystopian thrillfest about a woman moving to a glittering town of the future, whose investigation of a local tragedy puts a target on her back.
You’ll be safe here.
That’s what the tour guide promises Dr. Linda Farmer and her family when they move to Plymouth Valley. Sure, the locals are privileged hot house flowers who observe a weird religion Hollow, but the schools are blue ribbon, the air’s clean, the food’s fantastic, and Linda’s out of options. With the outside world in shambles, this move is her family’s last chance.
Linda, her husband, and their teen twins work hard to fit in, accommodating their square peg personalities into rounded holes. It works at first—the family rise up, gaining acceptance from the powerful elite. Then Linda encounters Gal Parker, a hot mess of a woman, whose wife has abandoned her and whose kids are sick. One terrible night, Gal commits an unthinkable act.
All of Plymouth Valley turns on Gal, refusing to speak her name. But Linda can’t stop wondering: what would drive a woman to do something so awful? The more she learns, the more frightened she becomes. A clock is ticking, too—before the Plymouth Valley Winter Festival, Linda’s got to figure out: should she and her family be fighting to stay, or fighting their way out?
A heart-poundingly ruthless dissection of wealth, power, and privilege, A Better World is “more terrifying with every turn of the page” (Booklist, starred review) from a writer who “never ceases to amaze” (Gillian Flynn).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the near-future world where Bram Stoker Award winner Langan's ambitious latest (after Good Neighbors) takes place, climate disaster and rampant crime have transformed life into a struggle for survival. For Brooklyn's Farmer-Bowen clan, salvation beckons when patriarch Russell, a scientist recently laid off from the EPA, is offered a trial position at South Dakota's Plymouth Valley, one of a handful of "company towns" that are the only remaining safe spaces on the planet. The oasis, constructed decades earlier by eco-engineering firm BetterWorld, seems like a golden ticket: as long as new employees pass an annual review, BetterWorld provides them with housing, transport, food, and clothing. As Russell's pediatrician wife, Linda, and their teenage twins attempt to fit into their new surroundings, Linda comes to worry that Plymouth Valley is too good to be true. Unfailingly polite but uniformly remote, the locals give her a sinister, Stepford Wives vibe, regularly snubbing her and the twins—and that's before she begins asking questions about a series of opaque neighborhood customs known as "Hollow." Blending suspense, tragedy, and flashes of comedy, Langan keeps her cards close to the vest as the Farmer-Bowens' perfect escape morphs into a sinister trap. This deeply disturbing tale will keep readers up at night.
