Publishers Weekly
09/18/2023
Korn makes her fiction debut (after the essay collection Everybody (Else) Is Perfect) with an alluring story of a feminist dystopia. It’s 2050, and unchecked climate change has caused civilization to crumble amid dangerous storms and disappearing coastal areas. The story unfolds through intersecting narratives of various women. Among them are Shelby, who is accompanying her billionaire boss Jacqueline Millender on a space shuttle orbiting Earth, and Ava, who gains acceptance to Jacqueline’s city-size Inside Project, a series of weather-resistant tunnels in New York City that allow people to move between buildings without exposure to the worsening climate. Korn also portrays life on Earth for the less fortunate, including Ava’s ex-girlfriend, Orchid, who is forced to fend for herself on the dying planet. As a member of Inside, Ava lets her life be designed and controlled by Jacqueline. There are no men allowed into the tunnels, as Jacqueline has determined that the planet can only be healed by eliminating the patriarchy. Before the end, though, Ava uncovers the dark side of Jacqueline’s vision for populating the next generation. Korn’s conceits are as provocative as her characters are well-rounded. Readers will eat up this distinctive work of climate fiction. (Dec.)
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"The action of the book will keep the reader turning the pages... radically reimagines the world and challenges our ideas for living in it." —The New York Times
"Korn manages to grapple with weighty topics while also delivering a compelling read, rife with twists." —Elle
"Gabrielle Korn takes an oft-deployed dystopian/sci-fi literary premise and shreds it to pieces....Enthralling."
—Autostraddle
"Listen, just read the book." —Vogue
"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
"Tackling themes of feminism, capitalism, queerness, race and gender, this is a remarkably frightening, enlightening and unflinching take on dystopian literature." —Ms. Magazine
"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
"If you’re into dystopian fiction, lesbians, and critiques of girlboss feminism, you’ll love Korn’s debut." —Them
"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
"Through a rich tapestry of characters with diverse backgrounds and queer identities, Korn’s novel delves deeply into themes of white feminism, gender essentialism, and the climate crisis. [Yours for the Taking] is a testament to the importance of representation, particularly of queer individuals, in science fiction." —BNN
"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
Library Journal
09/01/2023
DEBUT With climate change ravaging the Earth in 2050, the world builds Insides—fortified communities where a select few can survive the apocalypse. Billionaire Jacqueline, author of the female empowerment manifesto Yours for the Taking, funds one Inside in exchange for the ability to turn it into her own experimental, woman-led utopia. Her increasingly destructive obsession with recreating society in her image distorts the lives of her assistant Shelby, doctor Olympia, and Inside resident Ava, until a series of unanticipated crises reveal the fault lines in Jacqueline's perfect world. This novel skewers the ways some cisgender white feminists ally with existing power structures as long as the "right" people end up on top. Its commentary is relevant, but the narrative's preference for telling over showing keeps the protagonists at a distance, leaving central relationships underdeveloped. While the outcome of Jacqueline's experiment is never in doubt, the details of her feminist dystopia provide an intriguing exploration of how "saving the world" can become warped by ego and ideology. VERDICT Korn's (Everybody (Else) Is Perfect) timely fiction debut indicts exclusionary corporate feminism.—Erin Niederberger
JANUARY 2024 - AudioFile
Jasmin Savoy Brown's pleasant, dynamic voice captures the climate-razed Earth and the few people selected for survival as part of the Inside Project. Women's rights advocate Jacqueline Mellinder directs its Manhattan location, allowing only women inside in order to eradicate masculinity. Ava is one of those women; her voice is growing steadily dreamier as she lets go of her worries and accepts her new life. Olympia has a slight Texas drawl and a bold personality as she resists Jacqueline's mission. Shelby's dream job as Jacqueline's assistant affords her access to gender-affirming hormones; she is voiced with boredom that grows into curiosity as she investigates her boss's actions. With saccharine optimism, Jacqueline's corporate, cis-white feminism imposes her vision of the perfect world on women who are unaware of her intentions. A.K.R. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-09-09
A feminist multibillionaire’s solution to a climate change–induced housing crisis comes with a dark underbelly in this debut novel.
Ava is a white 20-something trying to stay afloat in 2050s New York City. Opportunities—and the island itself—are shrinking, so when applications to the Inside Project go live, both she and her girlfriend jump through all number of hoops to apply. Greenlit by the United World Government and funded in part by the enormously wealthy tech innovator Jacqueline Millender, Inside is supposed to provide state-of-the-art insulated housing for three million people selected by lottery. When Ava alone is chosen to go Inside, she starts on a path that will intersect with two other women—Shelby, Jacqueline’s white, trans assistant, and Olympia, Inside’s Black, queer medical director—and reveal how much the program is shaped by Jacqueline’s personal desires and willful ignorance. Korn’s premise couldn’t be more timely, mining ecological anxieties and the disappointments of girlboss feminism, but the novel’s engaging opening act doesn’t provide enough structural support for the back half. Despite regularly deployed reveals, the novel rarely surprises, seeming more interested in taking Jacqueline to task on the page than making her a compelling villain. Each point-of-view character is allowed serious relationships (romantic, familial, or friendly) with a maximum of three people, which gives a book ostensibly about community a very lonely feeling. While the point of Inside may be its unsustainability, the lack of thought about basic functionality (Olympia realizes, 43 chapters in, that there are no codified rules against romantic relationships between Inside medical staff and residents) becomes an indictment of the author as well as the characters.
Like the woman at its center, this novel sparkles with interesting ideas but struggles to delve deeper.
