1984 from Julia’s POV, an intriguing premise but it was always going to be difficult to live up to a classic.

It took me a while to settle into Julia and the story didn’t really pick up pace until 60%. Julia felt much longer than 1984 - perhaps lacking the punch of the original. With that said, it was fun to peek into the 1984 extended universe.

For fans of 1984, this might be a bit of a marmite book (all the more reason to pick it up and find out!)

Many thanks to NetGalley and Granta for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Do we need a retelling of one of the most iconic and influential novels of the 20th century? When I started reading Julia, I was not so sure. The beginning in particular is jarring, throwing us into the action without doing the work, relying on us to know the scene and the world in which it takes place. I even took Orwell's novel off the shelf to get into gear, and at first the comparison did Sandra Newman no favours. Where Winston's painful climb up the stairs during his break to sit in a corner and commit the indescribable crime of opening a diary and writing in it is a masterclass, Julia's start seemed almost frivolous.

But the longer I read, the more I understood and appreciated what was happening. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a pillar, a symbol of total despair in a communist dictatorship. In it, Winston is the unlikely hero, who becomes more and more determined in his rebellion - only to realise the futility of his actions. He is a man who sees the world in theoretical terms. When he reads a book by the Brotherhood of the Rebellion, we read it with him. When he hates women instead of the system, we follow him. And when he does not look at his world, we remain blind. It's all ideas, and these ideas are important. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel about the inability to love in a communist regime, and it is about totalitarianism.

Julia, on the other hand, is a book about people. One person in particular: Winston's cut-out girlfriend, a means to an end in the original and a multifaceted individual with ideas, fears, dreams and an existence when Sandra Newman introduces us to her. And she breaks open the world and the narrative we are used to. These are real people and they act like real people. They are not heroic, but members of a society under Big Brother's eye.

Newman really asks what it means to live under constant surveillance, focusing on how you can be many things at once: critical of the official narrative, in love with Big Brother, dutiful, doubtful, hardworking, gaming the system, empathetic, cruel. When Winston rambles on about his paperweight, a link to the past he desperately wants to reach, Julia is bored. When he reads to her, she falls asleep. When he dreams of raping her, she knows, and we understand why, in a sexless society, sexuality becomes a weapon, becomes resistance. Seen from the outside, Winston is a sad character - naive, hapless, self-absorbed. And yet, in his resistance, Julia sees him differently, sees his human dignity, his strength and his personality. This laying open of the hero worked incredibly well for me.

Some will argue this version of Oceania is less horrible because it is human, but I think it becomes more. We know these regimes, and we know what lurks behind the facade of perfect brotherhood. Where Orwell remains in the horror of inhumanity, Sandra Newman explains how exactly it works and how human it is. She can see behind what Orwell describes because she has the advantage of hindsight: When the first book was written, it was about an unknown regime, about something impossible and terrible. Orwell wrote it in the years immediately after the Second World War, when the horrors of the concentration camps were still vivid and the Cold War was beginning to dominate international relations. Since then, archives have been opened and historians have tried to explain not only the age of totalitarianism, but also how these regimes functioned.
Especially since the end of the Soviet Union, we know more and more about the inner workings, about privilege and hierarchy. Writers have shown us what it meant to be a woman in that world, and the sexual violence they describe has changed the way we think about these systems.
In Julia, Winston becomes flesh. This is a risk, of course, because the original version of the story was so powerful and remains so influential. But it is important to recognise why Nineteen Eighty-Four was so effective: It focused on a hostile regime and made that enemy insurmountable. It was the horror of the unkown, the view of a Brit on dictatorship, fascism and communism. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the system is perfect and belief in it is total. Today, his vision is used by actors on both the right and the left to cast the political enemy in the role of Big Brother. The danger is so theoretical that it can easily be used by all sides. This makes it very successful, and rightly so, but to a modern reader the reading experience can seem lacking.
Julia will not be used in this way. Firstly, it is not the original, and it does not have its timeliness. Orwell's story has been retold many times, often well and successfully, with a focus on the female experience. And secondly, it is so humanly focused that it becomes uncomfortable. Abortions and rape will make it a 'partisan' book, and the idea that women suffer differently has led to it being labelled feminist - ensuring that many will hate it for that reason alone. Winston has been corrupted by the torture of love, but Julia knows from the start that people are not pure, and that they will be good and bad, victim and perpetrator, at the same time.

The ending is ambivalent for me. On the one hand it is a bit clumsy. It all comes together too easily, too contrived. But I like the way it explores the idea of what an end to Oceania would mean. For Orwell, it was clear: the system was the horror, and escape from it was impossible. But he never asks what the alternative is. He is unable to see how a struggle against something bad does not necessarily produce something good. Again, this is not to denigrate Orwell: He wrote a visionary book containing many highly influential phrases, ideas and images at a time when very few could have done the same. Without him and his legacy, Julia and a plethora of other great novels would not have been possible. But he wrote his book almost 75 years ago, and it is a product of the social and political landscape of that time. Sandra Newman's Julia was, for me at least, a welcome and necessary addition to show us the limits of the perspective we have been following.

I read 1984 as a teenager and was interested to revisit the story from the viewpoint of Winston Smith's lover Julia. Like the original it is a bleak view of a totalitarian world though I struggled to engage with the narrative. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

A feminist retelling of 1984 from Julia's perspective? Sign me up! Granted, it's a long time since I've read Orwell's dystopian classic, and I'd forgotten a lot of the detail. It would probably have been good to reread it prior to reading Julia, but it's not essential.

Sandra Newman doesn't pull any punches when it comes to depicting the horrors and hypocrisies of the world Julia inhabits. There's a horrifying and totally unexpected scene quite early on - I won't say more than that - which hits the reader like a freight train. And that's just the start. Things get pretty grim.

Julia's just trying to survive and even get some pleasure out of life, but her world is dark and dangerous, riddled with hypocrisy, with little hope to be found. It's fascinating to see the same events from her perspective.

A great read, but not one for the fainthearted.

Millions of readers have pored over George Orwell's seminal book Nineteen-Eighty-Four, which tells the unforgettable story of Winston Smith's acts of defiance against Big Brother. It is a book that everyone should read at least once, and its themes have echoed through Dystopian literature (and real life) in the years since it was published in 1949. But what of the other character that shares in Winston Smith's small rebellion - Julia Worthing, the fiction department mechanic who becomes his partner in sex-crime?

In Julia, Sandra Newman reimagines the character whose fascination with Smith eventually brings about her own downfall. Newman faithfully follows the events of Orwell's original, and it is especially interesting when you are reading the scenes you know well from Smith's angle through Julia's eyes. But Newman also does much more, by offering the fresh insight of a female perspective on Orwell's grey vision, filling out so much of this world of hate and propaganda with swathes of colour - even if most of them are shades of blood red. From the way Julia hides her own un-Party like behaviour, to her relationship with the women she shares a hostel with, and how she becomes an instrument of the very Party she is not sure if she despises or loves, Newman draws you in. Julia is a complex character to like, and for all the moments she earns your admiration, there are an equal number in which her actions appal, but Newman does a sterling job of exploring how and why she acts as she does - and by the end of the book I was a fan of her strength and courage. In parallel, Smith comes out of this worse than he does in the original book, particularly when it comes to the consequences of his arrogance.

This is an engaging read, and I really enjoyed how Newman expands on Orwell's work to make the world of Airstrip One seem much more than a background against which a grim story plays out. We see more of London, get a better idea of how people live (and die) under the Party system, and Newman explores the gulf between the have and have nots well (both within the Party and among the Proles). There are moments when the story slows in pace, and I do think there could have been some nips and tucks from the time Julia is engaged in Big Brother's honeytrap operation to the time she and Smith are captured. but overall it flows well and has plenty of menace, as befits a book about Orwell's world. The ending is enigmatic and well conceived too, with a chilling message about the circular notion of political ideology.

This is beautifully written, provocative and dark. It makes an intriguing companion piece to Orwell's original, and also stands up well as a modern Dystopian thriller. Highly recommended!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Julia by Sandara Newman is a brand-new novel that is connected to George Orwell’s 1984, this one instead of telling Winston Simith’s story is set around his girlfriend in the novel Julia.
The way the story does this is by giving Juia’s perspective of the events in the novel as well as giving how women in the party were treated by spending time in her world of airstrip one
I think for the purist Julia will never be as poignant as George Orwel’s masterpiece in dystopian literature, firstly while Sandra Newman writes a readable dystopian novel it lacks the poignancy of the original dose all these year later.
This is partly due to the quality of writing by both authors as well as most dystopian novels, tell us more by the era they are Witten than any prediction of the future. Which means that while 1984 is commonly quoted in discussions of modern-day issues e.g. The rise in surveillance as well as the changes in language.
Julia while covering these issues is able to discuss the female perspective of living in Airship one, this to me is where some readers may feel that the novel strays from the original story, however if Julia had failed to do this then the novel would have felt outdated in world of 2023.
For me as a reader one of the joys of the novel was how Sandara Newman weaved the novel around Orwel’s original story, by giving Julia’s prospective to events, for example the throwing of the book during the two-minute hate and how she ended up following him.
This added to the reading experience especially if you have an in-depth knowledge of the source material or just finished a reread, like me.
All this means Julia by Sandra Newman is that Julia is well worth reading either as a stand-alone, as you do not need to read the Orwell novel or a new take on the Dystopian world. Of Newspeak and Big Brother.

I mostly enjoyed reading this, and found it interesting to view the dystopian world of 1984 through Julia's eyes.
I had hoped it would be a more feminist retelling though, so a bit disappointed as well
Thank you Granta and Netgalley UK for the ARC

Orwell revisited. Smoothly transferring the narrative, feels cast from the same mould.

I saw the title and instantly knew what this was - and was excited for it. I really love revisiting classics from the perspectives of other characters, and 1984, unlike many of others, hasn't had the attention of TV series, films and retrospectives. Despite really, really needing it in today's world which Orwell's unbelievable foresight scarily anticipated in many ways.

It is what it says - Julia's story. Julia, Winston Smith's love interest from 1984. Fleshed out with backstory, thoughts, secrets, and the world of Oceania as seen by a woman. Whose experiences are rather different to Winston's.

If you're a reader coming to this having never read 1984 - I won't be the only one urging you to grab a copy. As soon as you can really. Because while you'll find in Newman's work a scary dystopia, you won't understand just how well put together it is until you see the same world as envisioned by George Orwell, and see the same scenes as his characters do. Newman ties them in beautifully, I recollected the speeches, the scenes, the whole feel of the world many times.

This is one of the most frightening books there is. A world of totalitarian control, where your TV screens cannot be turned off and Big Brother watches you constantly, the Thought Police seem to know when you are rebelling in your mind against them. Where your words are controlled, you cannot freely love another, babies are raised away from their parents, food is rationed and rare, bath tokens are needed to wash, Hate Week encourages you to scream at the country's political enemies, children are rewarded for turning in their parents for Thought Crimes.

And added to this, Julia's mechanic takes us on a tour of her own female hostel, where girls can be whisked away in the night for real or imagined crimes (or indeed those of others). And into the mind of a woman raised in this hellhole, trying to blend in but take what pleasure she can in life. Which is where hers and Winston Smith's stories collide.

How Julia loses or keeps control of her mind and body plays out with some parallels to Winston, but also shows up the differences in the genders, in how Newman imagines Julia's backstory to fit in with 1984. We see other known characters behind-the-scenes as well, which was fascinating.

The author throws so much at you that flies by if you blink: the woman who "wore a bronze badge of the Hero Mother, awarded for the eat of raising ten children to conscription age." So much to unpack in that one sentence. Or ArtSem: "artificial insemination.. the Party's preferred method for its members to have babies... now even marriage was regarded suspiciously as a source of divided loyalties." She does a superb job of maintaining the period and feel of her source, with only very rare additions - microcopters that sound like camera drones - that add something more modern-sounding. But later, "the clocks in the Party districts struck nineteen", which takes us right back again.

It all made me feel that 1984 is ripe for a new filmic adaptation, it was never given a 'classic' screen treatment before. And it's more important than ever to keep it in the minds of successive generations.

Loved this, right down to the enigmatical ending.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

12 % is a very small amount for want to give any idea about a book, but I really couldn't handle it anymore. I think the retelling of one of the best books of all time was a mistake, I had too many expectations, I compared it with George Orwell and found nothing alike, even the main character Julia. The plot did not remind me of 1984, the detail about the places was poor, and worst of all was the characters, even their appearance description was different, Julia wasn't one I used to know and honestly, I didn't want to continue reading and destroy her image!

Thanks to Granta Publications for ARC via NetGalley, and apology for my harsh honest review.

Brilliantly written: 5* I am not sure it is possible to do Julia's story any more justice.

Enjoyable read: 3* In many ways I felt Julia was flat and robotic and extremely unlikeable.

For anyone who loved 1984, this is a great read BUT for anyone who didn't or hasn't even read 1984, I am not sure whether it would be well received.

The timing might not have been the best – reading such a dark book given what's been happening in the world recently wasn't the most pleasant experience. Nevertheless, I think Sandra Newman did a fantastic job of the difficult task of imagining Julia's background and point of view. I particularly liked the sense of dark humour and derision the author managed to summon despite the bleak Orwellian backdrop she had to work with, as well as the fact that Julia is not some sort of prototypical feminist heroine: she's a nuanced character whose intellectual and emotional outlook evolves because of what life throws at her, like we all do. Yes, there are some gruesome passages, but no more gruesome than in 1984. Like Orwell's novel, I felt like it was more about raising questions and encouraging reflection rather than about serving ready-made answers, which is what all good fiction is about. Well worth a read!

I LOVED this book. 1984 is iconic and I wondered how this book would stand up (so kept hearing about it and liked the premise/angle). There are so many talking points and it would make an amazing book for book clubs. This will be such a success- I couldn’t put it down.

Julia is a telling of 1984 from the perspective of Julia Worthing, the woman Winston has an affair with in 1984. He character is not greatly explored in the original novel, which is focused on Winston's inner life and thoughts about the society he lives in. This novel is billed as a feminist retelling, and centres around the experiences of women in this society.

Most of the book's timeline runs alongside 1984, begining just before Julia makes the first contact with Winston, The story, of course, feels very different when seen from her perspective. The insight we get into her life makes for a compelling book. even if it is necessarily bleak at times. Julia's childhood in a deprived farming community and her present life in a women's hostel are full of little details, and feel very real. It helps that Julia is interested in people, so the book is fleshed out with secondary characters - most of the men known from 1984, with the women mostly (if not wholly) new to this book.

Readers who know the original novel well will notice the almost-invisible joins, where Newman uses dialogue from 1984 in the scenes she retells from Julia's viewpoint. It is a neat device that works well, helping to reframe the familar. But the novel works well even when the overlap is harder to see, as a well-structured but ultimately different story. While not an uplifting read, there is humour and sympathy contained within it. Ultimately I was glad to have a chance to read it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Like most people, I suspect, I was drawn to this novel as I’m a huge fan of 1984. I was both intrigued to see the tale from Julia’s perspective, and daunted on behalf of the writer, for undertaking such a mammoth task.
At first, I wasn’t convinced. The Party seemed merely incompetent and disorganised, with Julia easily able to outsmart them. There was little of the chill and terror that characterised the original. The scene with the baby, as others have pointed out, was fairly gruesome and I wasn’t sure it had much merit beyond shock value.
When Winston Smith entered the story, something changed. He’s only a fairly peripheral character in Julia’s world, but for me – perhaps coincidentally – this is where the book really took off, with a bleakness and a terror that creeps up and becomes utterly compelling.
I flew through the pages, and I really feel Newman has done an incredible job of blending Julia’s world seamlessly with 1984, whilst bringing an entirely new perspective and narrative, making the story familiar yet completely fresh. Wonderful ending, especially the detail of the banana!
In short, this sceptic was converted, and I applaud Newman for triumphantly pulling off this formidable task.

Thanks to Granta and NetGalley.

What could anyone possibly add to ‘1984’, which creates a whole world within its pages?

Well, quite a lot as it turns out! In this retelling, commissioned by the Orwell estate, we learn the backstory of Julia, characterised in the original as sensual, unaware and apolitical. Her purpose seems to be to provide the love interest for Winston Smith and open up a chink in his detached demeanour, which has so far warded off attention from the Inner Party.
Sarah Newman’s Julia is a character in the round, no-one’s sidekick. Her background, especially her early years with her mother, and her character are fully fleshed out. She is altogether more aware in this version of what living under a despotic regime means. She is a survivor and has had to make many compromises along the way.

Like the original, this novel is described as dystopian. But when we look at the world today, we can see that much of what the author depicts is happening right now somewhere...in Russia, in North Korea, in China.

The details, in the hostel, at work and in day-to-day life, fill in Orwell’s often sketchy descriptions. We learn much more about life in Airstrip One. It was great to have minor characters such as Parsons given more time in the spotlight and to learn more about the proles’ ‘culture’. Some of the setting is almost reassuring familiar. The domesticity of the women’s hostel could be any YWCA hostel, with its blocked loos and petty squabbles.

This familiarity draws us in, so that the cruelty and repression when they occur become all the more shocking. As in Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Testaments’, you're on borrowed time after 30 as a wife of an Inner Party member, however pretty you may have been.

While the torture scenes make for difficult reading (OK, so I skipped a few pages), I’m so glad I read this novel, thanks to NetGalley, and intend to read it a second time once I’ve caught my breath.

A double plus good read.

I read 1984 many years ago at school so wasn't sure how much I would remember and be able to reference but I think Julia stands on its own as a great story.

We follow Julia as she navigates life under Big Brother, learning how to play the game in order to survive and I really warmed to her as you find out more about her background and personality.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read Julia

I enjoyed this book. I liked that she expanded on the little we actually knew about airstrip one, I loved that it had a twist that I never in a million years saw coming and that she pulled it off brilliantly. I really appreciated that she took all these ridiculous traits and actions that had been very male gaze focused and gave Julia reason and power behind those actions.
I also loved and hated the end equally.

As a giant fan of Orwell’s 1984, I was quite excited, but also apprehensive to read Julia.

This book has outlived my expectations.

It follows Julia, who in 1984 was in a relationship with Winston Smith.

Here, it’s written from Julia’s point of view. The reader gets a chance to discover Julia’s background and her difficult childhood experiences. We discover how Julia began her relationship with Winston, but the book goes way beyond that.

There are some gruesome depictions, like the toilet story and what happened in Room 101.

We also get to find out what happened after Julia was released from the interrogations.

This is a truly gripping book, but with some harrowing details. The author portrays the viciousness of the totalitarianism with authenticity.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone, you don’t have to be a fan of 1984 to enjoy it.

Thank you to Granta Books for approving my NetGalley request to read and review this title.

Thank you to NetGalley and Granta for the opportunity to read and review Julia by Sandra Newman.

Let me begin by urging anyone who may be put off by the phrase 'a feminist retelling' to ignore this. No doubt the phrase has been used for marketing when in fact all this means is it is the tale of Julia, Winston's love interest in 1984 by George Orwell. And let me state that it is a phenomenal retelling and a retelling I am thrilled now exists.

This does mean that Orwell's 1984 is required reading if you are to truly appreciate what Newman has achieved by putting Julia at the centre of the narrative . Think of 1984 as background reading to establish what Big Brother is and how it dictates the lives of the Inner Party, Outer Party and Proles. Think of Julia as a far more dynamic, rounded and far less self-indulgent portrayal of living beneath Big Brother in Oceania.

Newman's writing is fresh, incredibly well-paced and perfectly matches Orwell's original critique of political systems. But Julia is more relatable than Winston is, she is more human, more self-aware and thus very interesting. Julia is a heroine for the modern ages for her wits, sheer courage, honesty and flaws.

And without spoiling anything, the end is simply sublime. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite reads this year. Masterful storytelling!

A considered tale that does justice to Orwell’s 1984 but also adds to it in many ways: told through Julia Worthing’s eyes, we learn a lot more about the idea of Big Brother, all of which is as chilling as the 1948 publication.