There have been a couple of books written recently from the point of view of Julia, and from what I’ve read this one was the best out of them.

It gave a lot of depth to Julia as a character, and as a woman - which was great to read.

I felt that the plot became jumbled and rushed at parts, especially towards a the end.

I think if I hadn't read 1984, I would have really enjoyed this. In consideration to the original plot, this just didn't sit right but considered in it's own merit, I think this works well.

However, I really did not like the ending. A dystopian story isn't supposed to be redeeming and made to think that everything is okay at the end, the whole point is that there isn't hope in 1984 and this just completely ignores that.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this ARC.

This was an interesting story. I have read 1984 and this is told from Julias perspective, where the original is told from winstons perspective. There was some things that were different, and the ending is hugely different, but there are enough similarities that you will recognise it.

I thought it was well written, i think Julia is a good character and it was interesting to see the world that orwell created through julias eyes.

I didnt like the ending though i have to say, but it has very strong relevance in life. The grass is not always greener, and the people that you think are freeing you from opression, are worse than the original opressors.

4/5 from me.

I have reread 1984 a number of times and so I was looking forward to this retelling, in the voice of Julia. I was expecting a feminist version, in the slant of The Handmaid’s Tale.. However, I was disappointed.

The focus is mainly on sex and, whilst I am not a prude, it seemed to cheapen the whole novel. After all, Orwell didn’t feel the need to go on about it, yet you understood it was there. It was not empowering for Julia, rather she is exploited, with her sexuality is used against her as a weapon which, ultimately, results in her downfall. And if she despises Winston so much, why is she so fascinated with him? She makes such a deal about how pathetic Winston is,

There were parts of the book that were good - the plot mirroring and the fleshing of women’s characters, rather than the misogynistic one dimensional views from Orwell, was excellent. But the overall despair of Orwell’s book - the isolation and hopelessness that runs throughout the book is missing. Julia has friends, she doesn’t seem to truly fear the reign of BB, the book ends with hope - it seems to miss the point that Orwell was making.

This book is okay, but not as good as I had hoped it would be.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Often, with memorable works of literature, it is our tertiary characters that have more interesting stories to tell. Julia from 1984 is one of those characters. Sandra Newman has decided to tell this story in her novel Julia.

Like in 1984, Julie works for the Ministry of Truth and she wears her anti-sex sash but behind the dystopian rules we find out what Julia really thinks and how she is surviving living in this nightmarish society.

Told with a feminist slant, we see how women fare in male dominated societies and it is hard not to draw comparisons to real life.

I really enjoyed this re-telling and wish more authors would pluck characters from novels and tell their side of things.

Julia by Sandra Newman is available now.

For more information regarding Granta Publications (@GrantaBooks) please visit www.granta.com.

Having never actually read 1984 previously I was going into this pretty blind and had a good time! Newman introduces us to the world of Big Brother smoothly, without any requirement of prior knowledge of the world. Julia is a well developed character and it was easy to get attached to her and the world as she sees it.

I think I would like to go and read 1984 now but will definitely be waiting a bit so as to not compare them too harshly.

Newman did a great job with this and I was captivated for much of the book. I’m not sure I love modern retelling of classic stories though. There seems something a little bit arrogant about it. BUT, if you read the book on its own terms, it is very enjoyable.

The world of Big Brother, Newspeak etc from a female perspective. Julia has a relationship with Winston, the protagonist of the original 1984 novel. Matches the tone of that novel really well and contains some interesting twists, alongside some rather gruesome descriptions.

Thank you to Granta Publications and NetGalley for the complimentary copy of Julia by Sandra Newman.

This is an excellent retelling of George Orwell's 1984 from Julia's perspective. We are drawn into the bleak world of Julia and how every movement, word and interaction is scrutinised by Big Brother who is constantly watching. Julia thinks back to her past and how she grew up, and this is contrast to the controlled life that she experiences as a mechanic.

As she embarks on her intimate relationship with Winston Smith, a married man, she delves into pleasure that is forbidden. Soon enough captured and tortured and forced to denounce her lover, and accept all that the Party stands for.

When she finally comes face to face with Big Brother and realises he is an old, infirm man. Her hatred for him cannot seem to rise to the level that she would have wanted to. Instead she feels pity for him, and what he has now become.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and feel that I need to revisit 1984, which I had read decades ago.

Loved this new twist on the rewriting trend!

Sandra Newman's retelling of Orwell's 1984, Julia, gives the reader a whole new (feminine? feminist?) perspective and an opportunity to have more insight on the original story.

A great read !

Julia by Sandra Newman is a retelling of 1984 by George Orwell. Newman wrote this companion novel with the full support of the Orwell Estate. Its written in the perspective of Winston’s love interest, Julia, only known by her first name in the original novel and her story was never explored. It’s well written and provides a fresh narrative whilst staying faithful to the original.

The story is just as dark and harrowing and some scenes are truly terrifying. Julia however is a survivor and is determined to live her life on her own terms. She is full of flaws and therefore very easy to relate to. Newman explores Julia’s childhood as well as her current situation and you really feel like you know her character as the story progresses on.

I have seen lots of comments about the ending of this novel, from it being ‘perfectly wrapped up’ to it being ‘full of optimism’ Personally, I felt the ending was perfect for the tone of the novel and not at all optimistic.

Thank you to @netgally for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I must say I was a bit disappointed by this. I found it quite hard to engage with the narrative, though I did appreciate what Newman was attempting to do by engaging in this more feminist retelling of the classic novel. She broaches some serious topics (such as abortion) and constantly examines what it is to be loyal and how easy it is to betray both those you love and yourself. The ending is very fitting. However, I just found the writing a bit flat and dense.

"Julia" offers a unique perspective on George Orwell's "1984" by delving into the life of Julia Worthing, Winston's enigmatic lover in the original novel. Positioned as a feminist retelling, the narrative unfolds through Julia's lens, providing a fresh exploration of the experiences of women in the dystopian society.

The timeline of the book aligns with "1984," commencing just before Julia initiates contact with Winston. The story takes on a distinct tone when seen from her viewpoint, offering insight into her compelling and sometimes bleak experiences. Julia's upbringing in a deprived farming community and her current life in a women's hostel are richly detailed, creating a vivid and realistic backdrop. The narrative benefits from Julia's interest in people, introducing well-fleshed secondary characters, with men familiar from "1984" and mostly new women.

Readers familiar with the original will appreciate the seamless integration of dialogue from "1984," cleverly enhancing scenes retold from Julia's perspective. This device effectively reframes the familiar, creating a nuanced and well-structured narrative that stands independently. While the story is not inherently uplifting, moments of humour and sympathy are woven throughout, making it a compelling and worthwhile read. Overall, "Julia" provides a valuable opportunity to revisit a classic through a new and insightful lens.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

It was always going to be difficult to take a book as well-loved as “1984” and give it a different spin, but I enjoyed this feminist retelling, which is told from Julia’s perspective. We meet Julia as she goes about her work in the Ministry of Truth, just before her earliest encounter with Winston Smith. We see her motivations, beliefs, and own particular system for survival in Airstrip One, all of which leads to the very well-known events of “1984” in the Ministry of Love.

While anyone who has read “1984” knows where things are headed, this retelling was still able to surprise me, and I loved the tense atmosphere that the author managed to build steadily throughout the novel. It is such a big story to take on, and I know that not everyone will think that this is a story that needs to be told. However, I found it fascinating to revisit this world, seen from another perspective, and would very much recommend this work to anyone who enjoys retellings of this type.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Julia, is a retelling or rather more of a story of 1984 from the perspective of a the side character in Orwell's original novel, who has in my view always been mysterious as her actions within the original novel were often contradictory, and nonsensical to what little we did know about the character. Newman's rendition attempts to uncover the mysterious and what had seemed to be contradictory actions by telling Julia's back story and conflicts and 'secrets', as well as finally offering a perspective of what it meant to be a woman within the world of Oceania, something that isn't highlighted within the original book, but is implied. And interesting addition to 1984, and a definitely well written companion piece. Many thanks to NetGalley and Granta for the ARC.

Unfortunately it didn't quite work for me. It was a little too strident, too relentless and lacking the kind of delicate touch that could have made the book much more effective. Being overly long also did not help from a style perspective. That said, I am sure many readers will want to read this book and I intend to read '1984' again soon solely as a result of reading 'Julia'. Special thank you to Granta Publications and NetGalley for a no obligation advance review copy.

☆☆☆☆.5/5

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Julia earlier this year (thank you Granta Publications!), and then got to hear Sandra Newman speak about the book at the Toppings Bath launch which was FANTASTIC. It’s taken me a while to get through, but only because life got in the way and it’s one of those books that I think you really have to focus on (which is absolutely a positive to me when I’m reading, it means there’s a lot going on!).

Julia is a stunning retelling of George Orwell’s 1984 – Newman was hand-picked by the Orwell estate to bring Julia’s story to life as the UK copyright on 1984 ended in 2021, and I truly agree that she was the right choice.

Newman has finally given Julia the tribute she deserved. Her actions in 1984 weren’t always consistent with what we knew about her, and this reimagining finally ties up and explains everything that Julia went through and why she did what she had to.
This book isn’t just a retelling; this is a seamless continuation of 1984 that gives us a peek into a whole other side of Oceania, namely how women navigate through it to survive. The world we’re introduced to is simultaneously brand new yet eerily familiar, as we finally see outside of Winston Smith’s sphere.

Overall, I really did enjoy this book - it was incredibly interesting to finally see behind the curtain a bit more into Oceania and how it works, and finally seeing Julia’s journey to the end was strangely soothing?! The only negatives I have are that there were a few too many songs for me in there, and there’s a particular scene near the end that made me feel physically unwell (still feel 🤢 just thinking about it, it was just too descriptive for me).

Newman has made 1984’s Julia whole, and shown she had an entire life going on whilst Winston was misering about.

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.