I just didnt get this book. I found it took difficult to get into. Completely not for me and my tastes.

The premise of this book instantly drew me in. The idea of a university specifically for “cancelled” (usually disgraced) academics to work, free from the woke agenda, opens up so many avenues and ideas.

This book is satire at its best. The start and end are biting and witty, and no one is safe! As much as the book takes a firmly left-wing standpoint, the author doesn’t shy away from making fun of all aspects of the political spectrum. In particular he pokes fun at performative woke-ness, with the main character’s husband agreeing to go to this university of outcasts, provided that they go vegan to make themselves feel better about it.

Of course, the reality of an organisation without any kind of code of conduct is a bleak one, and soon our two main characters, Helen and Hew, find themselves morally at odds with each other. While they agree politically on many points, the book does a really good job of exploring how your environment – specifically your social life – affects your politics. Both characters are, in different ways, pushed to extreme ways of thinking, and it’s the point that they stop and draw the line that is the most telling and therefore compelling.

For much of the book Helen is trying to reconcile these two sides of the culture wars (and I’ve never been more convinced of that moniker than immediately after reading this book). I won’t spoil the conclusion the book reaches, but the journey it takes is fascinating. In many ways the political spectrum comes full circle with the figures in this book, and while the dilemmas we face in real life are (probably) not as extreme as in the book, we can still recognise ourselves in what the characters have to think about and consider.

There was excellent narration from Lauren Fortgang, who brilliantly brought Helen to life. I was desperate for any chance to listen to it, I enjoyed the experience so much.

This is a book unlike any other I’ve read, but it’s one that will stick with me for a very long time. I know it won’t be for everyone, but I think the discussion this book can inspire (from lovers and haters of it alike) is almost as interesting as the book itself.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

Honestly this book was kind of just confusing. I didn’t like any of the characters and the plot was all over the place. It was also way too political for me.
I thought the plot would concentrate on how she actually got the nobel prize but that was right at the end.
If you’re into disgraced academia and the politics of it then this is for you!

I found this book problematic.

Julius Taranto chooses to write as a woman, and from here, many issues arise.

‘How I Won a Nobel Prize’ is Taranto’s encyclopaedia entry of all the ways in which men can have their status and privilege removed within the academic sphere (racism, virtual or actual sexual harassment, abuse in all its forms, sexual assault, or rape). And he rehomes all of these malefactors on their own ‘university island’.

Yet his protagonist Helen (an educated married woman) is still enticed into sexual promiscuity when she goes to live among them; Taranto, therefore, effectively revoking their cancellation.

As a post-doc myself, I’m not reviewing from outside of this novel’s contextual world, still I cannot reconcile the kind of female character Taranto describes at the start of the novel opting voluntarily to live with what’s basically a free-ride, validatory slap-on-the-back-with-a-knowing-wink clan of offenders. The whole tone of the novel is ‘poking fun at’ the deposition of these Great White Males due to improper conduct.

At its worst, Taranto has his female protagonist mutate into one of them. At one point she remarks: ‘I let myself be as big a c**t as I could without creating an incident.’ It’s bilious. As other reviewers say, it’s nonsensical. And I just cannot stomach the use of the C-U-next-Tuesday.

Macmillan Audio’s hard-pressed narrator Lauren Fortgang certainly attempts to inject a tone of cynicism into her vocal performance as she voices some of the more absurd and offensive parts of Helen’s inner monologues, but, in my view, ultimately fails.

It’s such a shame that this is my first listen to Fortgang’s narration; it’s evident that she’s a voice talent with flair, wit, and versatility (just take a glance at her prodigious career on Goodreads!). Her lyricism is wasted on this brash and misguided debut.

‘How I Won a Nobel Prize’ audiobook was released on 15 Feb. My thanks are due to Macmillan Audio UK for providing me with a pre-release copy of the digital audiobook for review.

The Audio book was funny, irreverent, smart and deliciously read. I loved how the narrative straddled the fine line between making fun of different ideologies and pretending that all ideologies are the same. This is a book I am going to tell many people about, and might even gift to a few!

Helen is a brilliant physics student and with her mentor she is close to making a breakthrough that would decelerate climate change but then he gets sent to a university where disgraced public figures are exiled after doing something unforgivable in the public eye. The only way to continue her research is to follow him into exile.

How I won a Nobel prize is a thought-provoking and humorous exploration of 'cancel culture', moral complexity, the price of progress, and what it means to be a good person. I think the themes discussed in this would make for a brilliant book club discussion.

The audiobook is really well narrated and definitely adds a layer to the story.

Listened to audiobook
Thought this would be really interesting but I ended up DNF-ing at 20%
The narrator's voice was grating but that wasn't the reason I DNF'd:
Described as funny/clever/witty originality - I didn't hear any of this, just verbal vomit.

I may be too dumb for this honestly. It was better in audio than in print (sent from publisher) as the lack of punctuation in the print copy made some of the speech quite frustrating but was easier in audio.

Quirky, funny and absorbing. Really enjoyed listening to this audiobook during my commute. Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced review copy.

This book is unlike anything I've read before and I went into it completely blind with only the title to attract me. First of all, the narrator did such a great job and conveyed the essence of this character well.
Usually, I become skeptical when I'm reading a book where a woman is written by a man but I appreciate how 3D this character is. Now tho the premise of the story, I think it was executed beautifully and it made me think a lot, love when a book gets me to do that, I'm going to remember this book for a long time.

I really enjoyed this funny, nuanced and thought provoking satire of the current political culture, academia, and science. As someone from that world it felt very familiar and even though the plot was very predictable and much of the philosophy very superficial I enjoyed the conversational writing style, the underlying tug of emotional turmoil and the clever language.

This book was unlike anything that I have ever read before! It felt seriously bold and very original. I must admit that most of the information about Helen's work in computational physicals and quantum mathematics went totally over my head and I switched off when she was talking about code at great length and in slightly too much detail. However, the idea of the 'university for cancelled people' was so outrageous and the information about what some of the residents and academics had done was really funny. This book has a courageous, and pretty shocking sense of humour but I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

Not a book I typically have picked up but I am really glad that I listened to the audiobook as it was a more entertaining way of engaging with the material. I think I would have skipped great chunks of it if I was reading the text.

I would be interested in reading more from this author and I am intrigued to see what he writes next.

4 stars! A very interesting debut

I feel in two minds about this book. On the one hand, I loved the overall bizarreness of the premise, and dry humour of the characters. I even really enjoyed the scientific theorising and explanations, I thought they were done well and with balance so lay persons could understand the concepts easily enough. But something about the premise of the central political conflict didn't grab me, and I felt the setting wasn't used to its full advantage.

I'm glad I listened to it on audiobook, it was excellently performed.

It took me a little bit to get into this, as I wouldn't say the main character is the most likable and it covers challenging themes. However the audiobook is really fantastically narrated, the actor brings the story to life and it feels like she embodied the tone and vibe of the main character so well. The exploration of 'cancel culture' and how to reconcile or separate the actions from the actor are nuanced and interesting. Overall an enjoyable and interesting read.

A clever satirical novel set on an island of the worst type of academics. The cancelled of the elite have been ostracised and now work amongst their own under the power and money of BW.

A bit of a mind blower, as we watch our physicist protagonist take on a role on RIP and bringing her left wing morally progressive husband along with huge reluctance. Will she sell her soul for the plaudits and lose her husband in the process or is she actually a good person, what does it mean to be good?!

Fresh. Different. Funny. Terrifying!

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan audio U.K. for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in return for an honest review.

I found this book super engaging. The story of a woman and her somewhat husband move to a prehistoric (okay that's an exaggeration) island where white supremacy is... well... supreme. She questions her morals and political stand point so she can pursue her life's work. This is really well written, enough scientific knowledge is shown that it reads like a sci-fi in places (which to me is good) yet the prose and feeling of the story is not lost. At some points this book made me angry, but I think it meant to. Books like these can sometimes lose their way with pacing and plot, but How I Won a Nobel Prize did not fall short, and I was very satisfied with the ending too. Overall a great read.

I received a copy of the audiobook via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review so I want to thank NetGalley, the author and the publisher for this.

I thought it was a good-ish book, amusing but at the same time ironic as well. Honestly, it felt easy to listen to but, for some reason for me, it didn't have that something to keep me interested. I managed to finish the book, but not sure if I would recommend it further.

I’m not going to pretend that I understood all the physics, or that this was a book that I breezed through, but neither of those things should stop you from picking this up. I listened to the audio book, which, given the nature of some of the technical content, was probably much less effort than having to read a physical copy, which I think I might have found a little dry in places.
Lauren Fortgang does a wonderful job with the narration, striking exactly the right tone for Helen of academic indifference to/intolerance for, anything that distracts her from her scientific quest; the small matter of solving global warming.
Despite her noble and arguably altruistic objective, Helen’s morals are reassuringly fallible. This story exposes them unashamedly as we discover what she is (and isn’t) prepared to do in pursuit of her goal: a Nobel prize. She’s a fascinating character, and she’s not the only one in this cast. At times she’s battling the patriarchy whilst at others she’s colluding with it.
This story is full of moral and ethical questions and to what extent the end justifies the means. Many of the characters are hypocritical, their behaviour contradictory and often selfish.
It makes for a unique and entertaining perspective on what happens when money, power and academia collide.
I really enjoyed it!
Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan UK Audio for the opportunity to listen to an ARC.

This is a book that can now be added to the ever-growing list of academia and campus nobels! Funny and ironic, I loved the narrator and her journey into surviving on the academic institution while trying to save her marriage.

I loved this - it was laugh out loud funny, wicked and such an interesting commentary on the world we live in