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People Like Us
Win a free print copy of this book!
7 days and 14:45:20
20 copies available
U.S. only
The riveting new novel by the author of the 2021 National Book Award winner and bestseller Hell of a Book
People Like Us is Jason Mott’s electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.
In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.
People Like Us is wickedly funny and achingly sad all at once. It is an utter triumph bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. This book contains characters experiencing deep loss and longing; it also is buoyed by riotous humor and characters who share the deepest love. It is the newest creation of a writer whose work amazes, delivering something utterly new yet instantly recognizable as a Jason Mott novel.
Finishing the novel will leave you absolutely breathless and, at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us.
People Like Us is Jason Mott’s electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.
In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.
People Like Us is wickedly funny and achingly sad all at once. It is an utter triumph bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. This book contains characters experiencing deep loss and longing; it also is buoyed by riotous humor and characters who share the deepest love. It is the newest creation of a writer whose work amazes, delivering something utterly new yet instantly recognizable as a Jason Mott novel.
Finishing the novel will leave you absolutely breathless and, at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published August 5, 2025
496 people are currently reading
21389 people want to read
About the author
Jason Mott
21 books1,378 followersJason Mott lives in southeastern North Carolina. He has a BFA in Fiction and an MFA in Poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction has appeared in various journals such as Prick of the Spindle, The Thomas Wolfe Review, The Kakalak Anthology of Carolina Poets, Measure and Chautauqua. He was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize award and Entertainment Weekly listed him as one of their 10 “New Hollywood: Next Wave” people to watch.
He is the author of two poetry collections: We Call This Thing Between Us Love and “…hide behind me…” The Returned is his first novel.
The Returned has been optioned by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B, in association with Brillstein Entertainment and ABC. It will air in March, 2014 on the ABC network under the title “Resurrection.”
He is the author of two poetry collections: We Call This Thing Between Us Love and “…hide behind me…” The Returned is his first novel.
The Returned has been optioned by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B, in association with Brillstein Entertainment and ABC. It will air in March, 2014 on the ABC network under the title “Resurrection.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
August 5, 2025
PEOPLE LIKE US
● It's a book with a silly but meaningful cover
● It's a witty and sharply clever book
● It's a wacky book
● It's a funny book
● It's oft times a heart wrenching book
● It's a book written from the perspective of two modern day black authors
● It's a book written with chapters that have no names
● It's a book written with chapters that have no numbers
● It's a book whose chapters are signified by two different male silhouettes, one facing left and one with a dapper hat with a feather in it's band facing right
● It's a book of two men deeply soul searching
● It's a book about an individual grappling with the sudden and brutal death of a sibling
● It's a book about a group of people not knowing how to mourn a group of people brutally taken
● It's a book that grapples with gun violence
● It's a book about people trying to find where they really belong
● It's a book written in a style I have never encountered before
● It's a book with fabulous character development
● It's a book that inspired me to write a review in a very silly style
● It's a book that deserves five stars
● It's a special book
● It's a book that deserves recognition
● It's a book I want you to read
● It's a book that is an advanced reader copy
● It's a book I would like to thank Jason Mott for allowing me to read
● It's a book that I would like to thank Jason's publisher Dutton for allowing me to read
● It's a book that NetGalley facilitated the reading of
● It's a book with a silly but meaningful cover
● It's a witty and sharply clever book
● It's a wacky book
● It's a funny book
● It's oft times a heart wrenching book
● It's a book written from the perspective of two modern day black authors
● It's a book written with chapters that have no names
● It's a book written with chapters that have no numbers
● It's a book whose chapters are signified by two different male silhouettes, one facing left and one with a dapper hat with a feather in it's band facing right
● It's a book of two men deeply soul searching
● It's a book about an individual grappling with the sudden and brutal death of a sibling
● It's a book about a group of people not knowing how to mourn a group of people brutally taken
● It's a book that grapples with gun violence
● It's a book about people trying to find where they really belong
● It's a book written in a style I have never encountered before
● It's a book with fabulous character development
● It's a book that inspired me to write a review in a very silly style
● It's a book that deserves five stars
● It's a special book
● It's a book that deserves recognition
● It's a book I want you to read
● It's a book that is an advanced reader copy
● It's a book I would like to thank Jason Mott for allowing me to read
● It's a book that I would like to thank Jason's publisher Dutton for allowing me to read
● It's a book that NetGalley facilitated the reading of
March 21, 2025
Vicious and malicious in its humor. Jason Mott is a master at bringing the funny and he doesn’t disappoint here. A novel that is part memoir, part stream of dream consciousness, part travelogue, and part social commentary. All the parts add up to a whole damn book experiment that is 100% fanciful. I don’t want to be a spoil sport but I believe the publisher blurb has done a disservice to readers, it states; “In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying…..” Wait, what? Is it two or is one writer with a dual narrative perspective? Hmmm. This may turn into a big debate come August, I fall on the dual perspective side. And I accept in advance I could be wrong, however it doesn’t read as though there is a clear delineation between two authors, maybe I need to reread. Anyhoo, a great read that takes up the question of how “people like us” fit into America. Quite an experience.
August 26, 2025
Hell of a writer!
This one is a wild ride in the best possible way. It’s meta-fiction that reads like a memoir, and it’s one of those stories where you’re not always sure what’s real, but maybe that’s kind of the point. Jason Mott gives us two Black authors (or possibly two sides of the same man) navigating life on separate book tours. Soot, is freezing in Minnesota while visiting with college students about gun violence and loss. The other, a National Book Award winner, is living the high-profile version of that life, heading off to Europe after receiving a death threat. He is often mistaken for someone else and even introduces himself to a fan as Ta-Nehisi Coates (and signs the autograph that way), then later on as Colson Whitehead.
The story swings back and forth between their voices, and while I wasn’t instantly locked in to the narrative, the humor and sharp little insights helped me lean into it a bit more. Mott weaves in commentary on grief, fear, gun violence, and drops truth about being black in America, all while making you laugh in unexpected places.
There’s also a stalker named Remis that cuts in, shadowing the NBA winner’s life and giving an uneasy edge, but with humor. There might also be dreamlike scenarios and time travel. It’s often strange but funny, and I thought the satire was a great way to lighten up the heavy topics.
Mott’s writing is sharp, intelligent, and real-sometimes heartbreaking. People Like Us is messy, often uncomfortable, and totally unique. Even when I wasn’t sure where it was going, I was more than happy to follow. This was deeply human and absolutely worth the read.
This one is a wild ride in the best possible way. It’s meta-fiction that reads like a memoir, and it’s one of those stories where you’re not always sure what’s real, but maybe that’s kind of the point. Jason Mott gives us two Black authors (or possibly two sides of the same man) navigating life on separate book tours. Soot, is freezing in Minnesota while visiting with college students about gun violence and loss. The other, a National Book Award winner, is living the high-profile version of that life, heading off to Europe after receiving a death threat. He is often mistaken for someone else and even introduces himself to a fan as Ta-Nehisi Coates (and signs the autograph that way), then later on as Colson Whitehead.
The story swings back and forth between their voices, and while I wasn’t instantly locked in to the narrative, the humor and sharp little insights helped me lean into it a bit more. Mott weaves in commentary on grief, fear, gun violence, and drops truth about being black in America, all while making you laugh in unexpected places.
There’s also a stalker named Remis that cuts in, shadowing the NBA winner’s life and giving an uneasy edge, but with humor. There might also be dreamlike scenarios and time travel. It’s often strange but funny, and I thought the satire was a great way to lighten up the heavy topics.
Mott’s writing is sharp, intelligent, and real-sometimes heartbreaking. People Like Us is messy, often uncomfortable, and totally unique. Even when I wasn’t sure where it was going, I was more than happy to follow. This was deeply human and absolutely worth the read.
August 30, 2025
Charleston Gazette Mail, Saturday-Sunday, August 30-31, 2025.
“People Like Us” - Jason Mott, Penguins, August 2025, 237 pages.
As summer winds down you may be moved to switch from frothy beach reads or the latest spy thriller to something a bit more literary. To ease the transition between the two, consider “People Like Us.” This latest from from National Book Award winner Jason Mott is serious fiction with welcome touches of pure funny.
The book follows two male, Black writers. One, Soot, lives on his family’s land in North Carolina. He is visiting various places where there have been schoool shootings, to speak at the schools and to the communities. He is grieving the end of his marriage to Tasha and the loss of his daughter m, Mia, as she moves into adulthood.
The other writer is unnamed. He, like Mott, had just won The Big One (the NBA) and he’s on a speaking tour in Europe underwritten by a billionaire benefactor who had an incredibly interesting proposition for him. Oh, and a guy named Remus wants to kill him, but only after checking his teeth.
This is the first book by Mott that I have read, and it is chock-full of a bit of everything, even some magical realism (which I firmly believe is best left to writers named “Marquez,” for the most part.). Even still this book is fantastic.
It features a Scottish, Black chauffeur and an assistant who looks just like an imaginary friend called The Kid that the unnamed narrator had as a child. Plus an old girlfriend he discovers when she comes hurtling into his elevator, naked, while running from the wife of a doctor with whom she was having an affair, all in a hospital in Italy (the narrator was recovering from a stab wound.). Now, if that doesn’t at least pique your curiosity, I’m not sure I can do much else.
Did I mention his odd affinity for Nicolas Cage?
There is so much to love here, including a running gag that I won’t spoil, but that made me laugh every time.
Mott does an incredible job differentiating the voices of the two narrators; it almost reads as if two, distinct authors wrote the sections. Soot’s are quiet and somber, while the unnamed narrator’s are more lyrical - he had the cadences of a poet or a great hip-hop artist.
As one would expect, there is a fair amount of examination of what it means to be a Black man in Europe and in America, “…for the first time since I met him, he sounds all American. He sounds like Baltimore. He sounds like Atlanta. He sounds like Watts. He sounds like Brooklyn and the Source Awards and my dead grandmother’s chicken-and-rice recipe all rolled into one.”
And “people like us? What do we have? We don’t even have the South, which is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a homeland…I wonder what it feels like to be someplace in this world and not feel like an outsider.”
Mott’s prose is memorable, with lines like his description of Paris, “every brick looks like it’s made of old money,” and a character’s plaintive lament, “what do you do when your home doesn’t love you and all the other homes you tried to make a life in don’t love you either?”
The book will likely make my list as one of my favorites of 2025, which, as the unnamed narrator would say, is “gravy. Pure and total gravy.”
“People Like Us” - Jason Mott, Penguins, August 2025, 237 pages.
As summer winds down you may be moved to switch from frothy beach reads or the latest spy thriller to something a bit more literary. To ease the transition between the two, consider “People Like Us.” This latest from from National Book Award winner Jason Mott is serious fiction with welcome touches of pure funny.
The book follows two male, Black writers. One, Soot, lives on his family’s land in North Carolina. He is visiting various places where there have been schoool shootings, to speak at the schools and to the communities. He is grieving the end of his marriage to Tasha and the loss of his daughter m, Mia, as she moves into adulthood.
The other writer is unnamed. He, like Mott, had just won The Big One (the NBA) and he’s on a speaking tour in Europe underwritten by a billionaire benefactor who had an incredibly interesting proposition for him. Oh, and a guy named Remus wants to kill him, but only after checking his teeth.
This is the first book by Mott that I have read, and it is chock-full of a bit of everything, even some magical realism (which I firmly believe is best left to writers named “Marquez,” for the most part.). Even still this book is fantastic.
It features a Scottish, Black chauffeur and an assistant who looks just like an imaginary friend called The Kid that the unnamed narrator had as a child. Plus an old girlfriend he discovers when she comes hurtling into his elevator, naked, while running from the wife of a doctor with whom she was having an affair, all in a hospital in Italy (the narrator was recovering from a stab wound.). Now, if that doesn’t at least pique your curiosity, I’m not sure I can do much else.
Did I mention his odd affinity for Nicolas Cage?
There is so much to love here, including a running gag that I won’t spoil, but that made me laugh every time.
Mott does an incredible job differentiating the voices of the two narrators; it almost reads as if two, distinct authors wrote the sections. Soot’s are quiet and somber, while the unnamed narrator’s are more lyrical - he had the cadences of a poet or a great hip-hop artist.
As one would expect, there is a fair amount of examination of what it means to be a Black man in Europe and in America, “…for the first time since I met him, he sounds all American. He sounds like Baltimore. He sounds like Atlanta. He sounds like Watts. He sounds like Brooklyn and the Source Awards and my dead grandmother’s chicken-and-rice recipe all rolled into one.”
And “people like us? What do we have? We don’t even have the South, which is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a homeland…I wonder what it feels like to be someplace in this world and not feel like an outsider.”
Mott’s prose is memorable, with lines like his description of Paris, “every brick looks like it’s made of old money,” and a character’s plaintive lament, “what do you do when your home doesn’t love you and all the other homes you tried to make a life in don’t love you either?”
The book will likely make my list as one of my favorites of 2025, which, as the unnamed narrator would say, is “gravy. Pure and total gravy.”
July 15, 2025
As with his award winning Hell of a Book, Jason Mott defies description in this latest book. What it means to be a writer of note while a writer of color, and a National Award winner to boot. As episodes accumulate, traveling to Tuscany and Paris and concurrently Minnesota, he fills the life of two (or is it one?) winners so that at the end, the reader wants to go back to page one and read again. So much is packed in these pages, frustration and humor and time shifts and heartbreak. As I said with the earlier book, it should be required reading.
April 13, 2025
I think people’s perception of this book is going to be largely based on their tolerance for the unique narrative and pseudo-memoiric structure. Like you need to be okay not quite being able to locate your place in the two stories as bits and pieces are dropped to help you put together what’s happening.
But in the midst of that disorientation, it is definitely not a slow drag. It’s packed with Mott’s wickedly funny humor and a profundity that had me highlighting left and right.
If you’re game for trusting where Mott is leading you, you’re rewarded with powerful reflections on what it means to be American in all its inescapable brokenness. And more specifically what it feels like to be an African American navigating place and a weight of never quite belonging.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
But in the midst of that disorientation, it is definitely not a slow drag. It’s packed with Mott’s wickedly funny humor and a profundity that had me highlighting left and right.
If you’re game for trusting where Mott is leading you, you’re rewarded with powerful reflections on what it means to be American in all its inescapable brokenness. And more specifically what it feels like to be an African American navigating place and a weight of never quite belonging.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
August 15, 2025
As he did with Hell of a Book, Mott delivers a knockout punch of humor and tragedy that is Black American life in the 21st century.
July 21, 2025
Are you afraid of America? Mott set out to answer this question in his latest novel, People Like Us, publishing August 5th. Expectations were high and expectations were met...just a hell of a book. Speaking of, as soon as I started reading People Like Us, I quickly recognized character names/themes from Mott's previous NBA winner, Hell of a Book. This isn't a sequel, but it's definitely connected, and I would absolutely read that first if you haven't already.
People Like Us follows two Black authors, both having won "the big one", trying to find peace and belonging in our current world where neither of those ideas feel accessible. One is in the midwest preparing to give an author talk at a school recently affected by gun violence, the other abroad on a global book tour. Or are they maybe the same author? This is fiction, but it is also metafiction. It feels both so real and also so unbelievable, kind of like our current realities.
Mott examines what a reader wants from a book, from an author, and he challenges us by not spoon feeding us everything here, but he also slaps us in the face a couple times to make sure we're with him. What do you do when your home doesn't love you? Is there a Shangri La for Black Americans? Why isn't there a specific word in our language for admitting the person you love is gone but you still had a good day? Or a word for a specific laugh you'll never hear again?
I loved this book. It's self awareness made me laugh (peep the medal on the cover), its plot made me think, and its prose stopped me in my tracks more than once. Thank you so much to @duttonbooks for this copy of what is sure to be a favorite of the year for me and for many.
People Like Us follows two Black authors, both having won "the big one", trying to find peace and belonging in our current world where neither of those ideas feel accessible. One is in the midwest preparing to give an author talk at a school recently affected by gun violence, the other abroad on a global book tour. Or are they maybe the same author? This is fiction, but it is also metafiction. It feels both so real and also so unbelievable, kind of like our current realities.
Mott examines what a reader wants from a book, from an author, and he challenges us by not spoon feeding us everything here, but he also slaps us in the face a couple times to make sure we're with him. What do you do when your home doesn't love you? Is there a Shangri La for Black Americans? Why isn't there a specific word in our language for admitting the person you love is gone but you still had a good day? Or a word for a specific laugh you'll never hear again?
I loved this book. It's self awareness made me laugh (peep the medal on the cover), its plot made me think, and its prose stopped me in my tracks more than once. Thank you so much to @duttonbooks for this copy of what is sure to be a favorite of the year for me and for many.
July 9, 2025
Soot returns! You don’t have to have already met him in Jason Mott’s National Book Award-winning hilarious and brilliant Hell of a Book as a prequel to meeting the writer protagonist Soot as an adult in People Like Us. But I did, and even though I’m hazy on details (I read Hell of a Book a hella long time ago in November 2021), references in People Like Us brought it back and made me laugh as if I were reliving a real-life memory—which has special meaning in a book where that kind of experience is key. (Okay, no spoilers.)
So the new book:
Hilarious and on my god, the construction: how it organically grows even as it switches personas, locales, dropping into the middle of scenes. I never lost track of where I was and what was happening. It was seamless, jumping around in time, changing persons (here, I mean first to third and back again), because just soon enough, a phrase or a sentence is dropped in with such finesse you might not notice, and it orients you.
The writing is poetic without straining to be poetry. Hilarious out of honest unpredictability. Since there are two main persona protagonists, there are two slightly different voices. (You will have to read it to understand this better.) One blends a kind of wise-guy sound of 1940s movies (everybody has nicknames that apply to some characteristic—like Frenchie or The Goon or Kid—and money is “dough” and the reader is “sister”) with this poetry and present-day experience of being a Black man who, no matter what his accomplishments and education, is still stopped on the highway for DWB (driving while Black). And the other? Well, the same, less the wise guy. The overall voice (the compilation of the two) is delight and fun and radiant energy in words. I’d give a glorious sample, but the publisher is not allowing quotes until the book launches August 5th.
The story of a National Book Award-winning writer on a book tour, at home in his past, and everywhere the story goes is told in alternating timelines which readers of Hell of a Book might remember is due to the protagonist writer’s “condition” whereby he time travels. This is helped by an ingenious book design using little silhouette illustrations of the protagonist in two different forms ... with a slight revision for the final chapter.
Some Thoughts on Time Travel
Both Hell of a Book and this new book hit me straight in the heart, bypassing my brain. And I think one of the reasons for that is that any reader who’s lived enough to have a substantial inner book of history—of place, of deaths, of whatever—has the same “condition” that Soot and, I wager, Jason Mott have: the experience of time traveling. You see something, smell something, hear something, and boom! Fade out. Fade in on a scene from your past. It can be so visceral that it feels like time travel … and for all I know, it is if you think your real self is Consciousness rather than a material body. I love what Mott does with this in these two books. Everything is right there all the time. It never goes away.
Okay, back to the plot
I’m not going to give the plot for two reasons: I don’t like summarizing plots and I think it’s the writer’s job and the reader’s pleasure to experience plot. All I’ll say is that while on the book tour, Soot or someone who doesn’t mind being mistaken for every living famous Black writer (the cover copy identifies them as two people, but things are not so clear) go to Minneapolis and to Italy and other parts of “Euroland” where the language is “Foreign.” And they slip around in time back to their original home in the South. There is a compelling drama and deeply painful emotional stuff revealed with such artistry that I could never get enough in the first book, and, hence, I’m glad for a sequel. The rest is for you to enjoy as it unfolds—or more accurately, jump-cuts.
Jason Mott is a skilled technician, hilarious, and as free in writing, and in a way, dramatizing the very act of writing, as I’m sure he and a lot of us aspire to be in real life. The work sizzles with unmediated life.
So the new book:
Hilarious and on my god, the construction: how it organically grows even as it switches personas, locales, dropping into the middle of scenes. I never lost track of where I was and what was happening. It was seamless, jumping around in time, changing persons (here, I mean first to third and back again), because just soon enough, a phrase or a sentence is dropped in with such finesse you might not notice, and it orients you.
The writing is poetic without straining to be poetry. Hilarious out of honest unpredictability. Since there are two main persona protagonists, there are two slightly different voices. (You will have to read it to understand this better.) One blends a kind of wise-guy sound of 1940s movies (everybody has nicknames that apply to some characteristic—like Frenchie or The Goon or Kid—and money is “dough” and the reader is “sister”) with this poetry and present-day experience of being a Black man who, no matter what his accomplishments and education, is still stopped on the highway for DWB (driving while Black). And the other? Well, the same, less the wise guy. The overall voice (the compilation of the two) is delight and fun and radiant energy in words. I’d give a glorious sample, but the publisher is not allowing quotes until the book launches August 5th.
The story of a National Book Award-winning writer on a book tour, at home in his past, and everywhere the story goes is told in alternating timelines which readers of Hell of a Book might remember is due to the protagonist writer’s “condition” whereby he time travels. This is helped by an ingenious book design using little silhouette illustrations of the protagonist in two different forms ... with a slight revision for the final chapter.
Some Thoughts on Time Travel
Both Hell of a Book and this new book hit me straight in the heart, bypassing my brain. And I think one of the reasons for that is that any reader who’s lived enough to have a substantial inner book of history—of place, of deaths, of whatever—has the same “condition” that Soot and, I wager, Jason Mott have: the experience of time traveling. You see something, smell something, hear something, and boom! Fade out. Fade in on a scene from your past. It can be so visceral that it feels like time travel … and for all I know, it is if you think your real self is Consciousness rather than a material body. I love what Mott does with this in these two books. Everything is right there all the time. It never goes away.
Okay, back to the plot
I’m not going to give the plot for two reasons: I don’t like summarizing plots and I think it’s the writer’s job and the reader’s pleasure to experience plot. All I’ll say is that while on the book tour, Soot or someone who doesn’t mind being mistaken for every living famous Black writer (the cover copy identifies them as two people, but things are not so clear) go to Minneapolis and to Italy and other parts of “Euroland” where the language is “Foreign.” And they slip around in time back to their original home in the South. There is a compelling drama and deeply painful emotional stuff revealed with such artistry that I could never get enough in the first book, and, hence, I’m glad for a sequel. The rest is for you to enjoy as it unfolds—or more accurately, jump-cuts.
Jason Mott is a skilled technician, hilarious, and as free in writing, and in a way, dramatizing the very act of writing, as I’m sure he and a lot of us aspire to be in real life. The work sizzles with unmediated life.
August 13, 2025
Another brilliant, reflective, genre-bending novel by this fantastic author. This book includes two distinct but related storylines about black authors. One is touring Europe and the other is speaking with a community after a school shooting. Both deal either supernatural aspect like time travel and visions. Both also address topics of violence, racial identity, community, family, and the literary world.
It’s brilliant and humorous and very self-referential. Not sure I “got” all of it, honestly.
It’s a heavy read but I’m glad to have experienced it!
It’s brilliant and humorous and very self-referential. Not sure I “got” all of it, honestly.
It’s a heavy read but I’m glad to have experienced it!
August 31, 2025
I think I'm missing something. I loved, like one of my all-time favorite books, this author's Hell of a Book and so I could barely wait for this one. And there were moments that I recognized the honesty and brutality and beauty I associate with Jason Mott, But I spent a lot of this book confused. I think I'm supposed to understanding the switches in narration, but I didn't. I think I was supposed to recognize metaphor vs. reality, but I didn't.
What I recognized was the author's attempt to grapple with the violence that plagues America and the complicated feeling that perplex those of us who call this country home. There is no escaping that violence and that shines through in the storytelling.
I didn't love this novel, but I feel like if I tried it again in different circumstances, I might like it more.
What I recognized was the author's attempt to grapple with the violence that plagues America and the complicated feeling that perplex those of us who call this country home. There is no escaping that violence and that shines through in the storytelling.
I didn't love this novel, but I feel like if I tried it again in different circumstances, I might like it more.
August 31, 2025
”It's enough to make her laugh, which is to say: it's everything.”
Wow. Jason Mott might have another National Book Award on the way.
The kid takes the book and he offers Soot a handshake and when they're shaking hands the kid just says four little words: "Thanks for being weird."
And Soot breaks right there in front of everyone. He falls apart.
Wow. Jason Mott might have another National Book Award on the way.
The kid takes the book and he offers Soot a handshake and when they're shaking hands the kid just says four little words: "Thanks for being weird."
And Soot breaks right there in front of everyone. He falls apart.
August 14, 2025
I’m sorry but I didn’t really get it. I liked Mott’s writing style and his sense of humor a lot, but I just couldn’t understand the dueling perspectives and figuring out what was and wasn’t real.
I was really looking forward to some moment of clarity towards the end but it didn’t really come. Maybe I’m just dumb? Idk
I was really looking forward to some moment of clarity towards the end but it didn’t really come. Maybe I’m just dumb? Idk
March 8, 2025
this is not memoir but at the same it feels like it? i guess it's because it has deeply personal connections to the author's life. and while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.
it started off with two Black writers that are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. one is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. and as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.
this book made laugh and cry at the same time, i really ended up being an emotional wreck after. one moment, characters are swigging booze from a literary award, and the next, you’re hit with a line so profound that it feels like an emotional sucker punch. there is a constant push and pull humor and sorrow, joy and pain making the story feel as alive and unpredictable as real life. by the time i turned the last page, I felt changed. this book made me appreciate the fleeting, ridiculous, beautiful mess that is being human. it made me want to hug my loved ones, cry over the weight of the world, and, for some reason, Google “do sea monsters exist?”
if want a book that will make you laugh, make you weep, and make you question reality just a little bit—this is it.
5 ⭐️ thank you Jason Mott and Penguin Group Dutton.
yes, i already preordered a physical copy for me and my husband.
it started off with two Black writers that are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. one is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. and as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.
this book made laugh and cry at the same time, i really ended up being an emotional wreck after. one moment, characters are swigging booze from a literary award, and the next, you’re hit with a line so profound that it feels like an emotional sucker punch. there is a constant push and pull humor and sorrow, joy and pain making the story feel as alive and unpredictable as real life. by the time i turned the last page, I felt changed. this book made me appreciate the fleeting, ridiculous, beautiful mess that is being human. it made me want to hug my loved ones, cry over the weight of the world, and, for some reason, Google “do sea monsters exist?”
if want a book that will make you laugh, make you weep, and make you question reality just a little bit—this is it.
5 ⭐️ thank you Jason Mott and Penguin Group Dutton.
yes, i already preordered a physical copy for me and my husband.
September 9, 2025
When Jason was on the European leg of his book tour for Hell of a Book, the readers were rather focused on his reality as a Black author from the country with a gun culture that is uniquely American. I get the sense they wanted to understand the cognitive dissonance involved in staying where guns reign, and a fear of otherness raises the stakes for many more than others—the fatal consequences of the two intersecting, of which we have seen over and over again.
Jason explained in interviews leading to the publication day, to *really* answer these kind of reader questions was to start a memoir, which evolved into the novel that became PEOPLE LIKE US. Now that I’ve finished it, I can understand his need to ironically distance himself from reality by returning to meta fiction (and bringing levity in his signature way).
In a sense, he’s been answering for a while now, arguably starting with Hell of a Book. This time though, I saw the characters as proxy for bits and pieces of himself—a little Superman here, some Clark Kent there—even the villain who, in a sense, turns on himself.
In another parallel, PEOPLE LIKE US feels like a full circle nod to Jason’s second publication from 2011—a poetry collection titled Hide Behind Me. The cover features a young Black boy exuding an air of budding confidence in an oversized cape; in the likeness of his own comic book heroes, he draws on their strength. The website for this collection features the following quote which is also fitting, in my opinion, for PEOPLE LIKE US:
“…we have only to follow the thread of the heropath. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
–Joseph Campbell
You might appreciate People Like Us and its experimental flare if you’re a fan of:
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Marabou Stork Nightmares
Erasure
So Much Blue
Bunny
Kindred
And the following movies:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Pulp Fiction and other Tarantino films
They Came Together
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Jason explained in interviews leading to the publication day, to *really* answer these kind of reader questions was to start a memoir, which evolved into the novel that became PEOPLE LIKE US. Now that I’ve finished it, I can understand his need to ironically distance himself from reality by returning to meta fiction (and bringing levity in his signature way).
In a sense, he’s been answering for a while now, arguably starting with Hell of a Book. This time though, I saw the characters as proxy for bits and pieces of himself—a little Superman here, some Clark Kent there—even the villain who, in a sense, turns on himself.
In another parallel, PEOPLE LIKE US feels like a full circle nod to Jason’s second publication from 2011—a poetry collection titled Hide Behind Me. The cover features a young Black boy exuding an air of budding confidence in an oversized cape; in the likeness of his own comic book heroes, he draws on their strength. The website for this collection features the following quote which is also fitting, in my opinion, for PEOPLE LIKE US:
“…we have only to follow the thread of the heropath. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
–Joseph Campbell
You might appreciate People Like Us and its experimental flare if you’re a fan of:
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Marabou Stork Nightmares
Erasure
So Much Blue
Bunny
Kindred
And the following movies:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Pulp Fiction and other Tarantino films
They Came Together
Everything Everywhere All at Once
August 10, 2025
People Like Us is getting the good reviews it deserves.
However, the publicity material and reviews I've seen of People Like Us present this as a tale of two writers (or maybe just one?). People Like Us does include those writers, but what is really at the heart of the book, I think, is an examination of U.S. gun culture, its expansion beyond our borders, and its impact on Black children. It suggests that gun culture is every bit as inescapable as racial stratification—and it does this powerfully.
Really, that's all I want to say. I just want to share some appreciation for the depths it's probing.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
However, the publicity material and reviews I've seen of People Like Us present this as a tale of two writers (or maybe just one?). People Like Us does include those writers, but what is really at the heart of the book, I think, is an examination of U.S. gun culture, its expansion beyond our borders, and its impact on Black children. It suggests that gun culture is every bit as inescapable as racial stratification—and it does this powerfully.
Really, that's all I want to say. I just want to share some appreciation for the depths it's probing.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
September 5, 2025
Two Hell of a Books
June 18, 2025
Too Meta?
September 9, 2025
It was time for my next Audible, and I was looking at the new releases out there and I saw this new one by Jason Mott. Having read Mott before, I was intrigued and looked at the synopsis, this looked like something different.
People Like Us is a very current book. It really delves into many of the problems our society is facing at the moment. It is always interesting to get different perspectives on all the stuff going on right now.
I am not like the “Us” in the book; but then again, maybe I am. Despite all of our differences, we are all facing the same problems and challenges. There are times when society seems to be going to hell. Things are so out of control; it feels like no one can stop this crazy train from going off of the rails. The hate begets more hate; the fear leads to more violence. Do we protect ourselves or do we run away?
People Like Us is Jason Mott’s story. He says that it isn’t a memoir, but it feels like the story is very personal to him. He has created some fabulous characters to take us on this journey, and his writing is second to none.
I only wish there was more of a story to it. I felt, I laughed, I connected with the book; I would have liked a tale. I think that an author can do two things at the same time, they can get a message out there and they can tell a great story that makes the reader feel and connect. I needed that story to bring this one up to the next level.
People Like Us is a very current book. It really delves into many of the problems our society is facing at the moment. It is always interesting to get different perspectives on all the stuff going on right now.
I am not like the “Us” in the book; but then again, maybe I am. Despite all of our differences, we are all facing the same problems and challenges. There are times when society seems to be going to hell. Things are so out of control; it feels like no one can stop this crazy train from going off of the rails. The hate begets more hate; the fear leads to more violence. Do we protect ourselves or do we run away?
People Like Us is Jason Mott’s story. He says that it isn’t a memoir, but it feels like the story is very personal to him. He has created some fabulous characters to take us on this journey, and his writing is second to none.
I only wish there was more of a story to it. I felt, I laughed, I connected with the book; I would have liked a tale. I think that an author can do two things at the same time, they can get a message out there and they can tell a great story that makes the reader feel and connect. I needed that story to bring this one up to the next level.
August 6, 2025
As on par for Jason Mott, he comes through with another story that mixed humor, reality, and sadness all in a five star book.
I want to preface this with I usually speed through books but for this one I took my time. I needed to really think about what I read and how it applies to the people and world around me. It made me really think about people’s impact on each other.
As a teacher, wife, and mother this book really hit home. It’s the story of two writers who take two different paths that intertwine indirectly. The story takes on some heaviness with America and the state we are in and weaves in lightness.
I teach students where English is their second language and I always worry about do they feel like they belong and how do they feel about and what home means to them. It will make me think hard about how my students and families are treated and what I can do to make them feel that they have a place here.
I won’t lie I’m kind of biased about Jason Mott’s work. His novels make me think and feel things that sometimes I’m not prepared for. Also I met him once in Ohio at our city library and listened to him talk. He is my favorite author ever, he’s actually my Taylor Swift of authors!! That dame in Ohio was me and to know that the interaction we had made an impact on him as it did me is something that I will never forget!!
Thanks to Jason Mott, the publishers, and NetGalley for making this dame from Ohio feel absolutely honored!
I want to preface this with I usually speed through books but for this one I took my time. I needed to really think about what I read and how it applies to the people and world around me. It made me really think about people’s impact on each other.
As a teacher, wife, and mother this book really hit home. It’s the story of two writers who take two different paths that intertwine indirectly. The story takes on some heaviness with America and the state we are in and weaves in lightness.
I teach students where English is their second language and I always worry about do they feel like they belong and how do they feel about and what home means to them. It will make me think hard about how my students and families are treated and what I can do to make them feel that they have a place here.
I won’t lie I’m kind of biased about Jason Mott’s work. His novels make me think and feel things that sometimes I’m not prepared for. Also I met him once in Ohio at our city library and listened to him talk. He is my favorite author ever, he’s actually my Taylor Swift of authors!! That dame in Ohio was me and to know that the interaction we had made an impact on him as it did me is something that I will never forget!!
Thanks to Jason Mott, the publishers, and NetGalley for making this dame from Ohio feel absolutely honored!
August 18, 2025
Like Hell of a Book, it’s impossible to categorize; 50% sequel, 50% memoir, and 50% philosophical rumination on America, being American, being black, being a black American, guns, guns, and much more (guns).
Can we ever feel safe? Should we just leave? Should we work to make it better?
All this in a funny, insightful, moving, mixture of reality and fiction.
And now I go to read Hell of a Book again.
Can we ever feel safe? Should we just leave? Should we work to make it better?
All this in a funny, insightful, moving, mixture of reality and fiction.
And now I go to read Hell of a Book again.
August 17, 2025
4-4.5 stars.
August 25, 2025
It’s got a bit Big Fish energy going on, where you don’t really know what’s real within the context of the novel and what’s not. Though I suppose the more important thing to consider is, does that even matter? Not when the writing is as prodigious as it is, no. Jason Mott’s writing is beyond, in which he tackles big topics (in this case, American gun culture and blackness) in an impeccably nuanced, acute and downright creative way. He’s funny to beat, funny when he shouldn’t be, and man oh man is he good.
July 30, 2025
You should probably take my 4 star rating as a 5 star since there is so much about this book that goes against what I look for in a good read. This is a mash-up of memoir, magical realism (maybe), social commentary, and biting humor all woven together in a fluid stream of consciousness. (Don't mistake what I say, I love social commentary and biting humor.) The reader isn't even assured of who they are actually reading about. But, honestly, that doesn't matter. What does are the plot points of school shootings, the inability of white people to distinguish the individualism of Black people, the feeling of having no home, the loss of a child, and potentially manifest destiny. It is all a lot for one book to carry, but this one does. Perhaps it is the presentation style that allows for so many heavy topics to be brought together but still provide a riveting read? I guess it says a lot that even though I am not a fan of his writing style, I consider Mr. Mott a must read!
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.
August 25, 2025
Check out that cover!
The unnamed author and Soot from Jason Mott's Hell of a Book are back, in this sort-of-not-quite-a-sequel. Like Mott in real life, the fictional author's fictional hell of a book from Mott's real life Hell of a Book has won the National Book Award for Fiction. Or, as the author character refers to it,the N-word The Big One. After a publishing industry bacchanal where everyone (expect the now sober writer) drinks shots out his National Book Award bronze statue as if it's the Stanley Cup, our narrator is sent on a book tour to The Continent, paid for by a French billionaire fan whose name is redacted. ("Now, just between you and me, sister, I have a sneaking suspicion that, money being what money being, and power being what power being, legal's never gonna let me say his name on the page.") The author character just calls him "Frenchie." As his agent says, "They know how to treat people like you. ... Over there, you can be who you are." And this tour offer couldn't have come at a better time, as he's been previously assaulted in L.A. by a man called Remus, who, after forcibly checking his dental work, has promised to kill him. Along the way, he's repeatedly mistaken for Ta-Nehisi Coates, Walter Mosley and Colson Whitehead.
Like Hell of a Book, this is a hard novel to describe without revealing too much. It's about the American fascination with guns, and the tragedy of American gun violence. It's about trying to find home, and what is home anyway? It's about loving a country that doesn't love you back, and how the grass may be different on the other side of the fence, but it's not necessarily greener. It's about the insanity of book tours and giving the people what they want, even if that's forging Colson Whitehead's autograph. Like Hell of a Book, it's once again about how you can hide (or run) all you want, but you're still stuck with yourself wherever you go.
It's humorous, poignant, tragic, and absurd,—all in one story. And that was one hell of an ending.
The unnamed author and Soot from Jason Mott's Hell of a Book are back, in this sort-of-not-quite-a-sequel. Like Mott in real life, the fictional author's fictional hell of a book from Mott's real life Hell of a Book has won the National Book Award for Fiction. Or, as the author character refers to it,
And, as if we needed a good omen, which we didn't, by the way: when we stop at a light the eyes of a French woman on the sidewalk go big as saucers and she runs over and tells me how excited she is to meet me and how she'd love an autograph and so I give her what she's hoping for by writing on the back of a napkin and handing it to her.Soot is also on a book tour. All grown up now, married, divorced, having lost his daughter, he now speaks at sites of gun violence to shocked and bereaved communities. He spends a lot of time in the past before his daughter's death. He describes this as literal time travel to his ex when he visits her in Toronto. While the readings he gives grieving audiences are about how they will, like he has, get through the tragedy and go on, Soot himself isn't dealing with reality as well as he tries to present. In some ways, his book reading is just as Panglossian as the active shooter training presentation from his daughter's school.
Thanks for all the love and support. Please keep reading!
—Colson Whitehead
"I thought you had longer hair," she says in an accent just as we're pulling off.
Like Hell of a Book, this is a hard novel to describe without revealing too much. It's about the American fascination with guns, and the tragedy of American gun violence. It's about trying to find home, and what is home anyway? It's about loving a country that doesn't love you back, and how the grass may be different on the other side of the fence, but it's not necessarily greener. It's about the insanity of book tours and giving the people what they want, even if that's forging Colson Whitehead's autograph. Like Hell of a Book, it's once again about how you can hide (or run) all you want, but you're still stuck with yourself wherever you go.
It's humorous, poignant, tragic, and absurd,—all in one story. And that was one hell of an ending.
August 28, 2025
I didn’t think I would enjoy this as much as I did. I was hesitant and even considered putting it down about a third of the way through and DNFing it, but I kept going and I’m glad I did. The dual narrative, with one writer on tour and the other living as a fugitive in Europe, could have come across as pretentious. Instead it felt surreal in the best way and carried real emotional weight. The writing walks a fine line between lyrical and blunt, and here it works.
The speculative touches like time travel, sea monsters, floating guns, and even a peacock float somewhere between magical realism and a fever dream. I’m not usually drawn to speculative fiction, but when it clicks for me I really enjoy it, and People Like Us was one of those times.
What stood out most was the commentary on gun violence. It wasn’t there as shock value, but as a constant, haunting undercurrent. It read more as fear, grief, and survival than as a plot device, and that made it hit harder.
For all its surreal elements, the story is grounded by characters full of sorrow, absurdity, longing, and enduring love. I’m glad I finished this one. It won’t be for everyone, and I can see why opinions on it might be divided, but for me it was worth the read.
The speculative touches like time travel, sea monsters, floating guns, and even a peacock float somewhere between magical realism and a fever dream. I’m not usually drawn to speculative fiction, but when it clicks for me I really enjoy it, and People Like Us was one of those times.
What stood out most was the commentary on gun violence. It wasn’t there as shock value, but as a constant, haunting undercurrent. It read more as fear, grief, and survival than as a plot device, and that made it hit harder.
For all its surreal elements, the story is grounded by characters full of sorrow, absurdity, longing, and enduring love. I’m glad I finished this one. It won’t be for everyone, and I can see why opinions on it might be divided, but for me it was worth the read.
September 8, 2025
Hard to describe or define the book “People Like Us” or my feelings while reading it. I’ve been a tremendous fan of Jason Mott since his book “The Returned.” This book takes us on quite a trip alongside two Black men, Soot and the narrator, both authors speaking to audiences, one right after a school shooting and the other in Europe on a book tour, visiting towns and countries not their own. No matter where the two men go, however, they face the uniquely American epidemic of gun love and the predictable violence that accompanies guns. Through the equivalent of fever dreams, time travel and magical realism, the characters face joy, humor, fear and sadness as Mott weaves guns, Blackness and the feeling of otherness into their lives and regrets. In one section particularly, Mott walks us through the paucity of language to describe how horrible it is to lose a loved one to gun violence and still wake up every day to live, love, smile and cry. The section blew me away.
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August 27, 2025See full review on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution website:
"Acclaimed North Carolina author Jason Mott made a memorable statement about racial violence in his 2021 National Book Award winner “Hell of a Book” when he introduced his character Soot — a little Black boy who turns invisible when he senses danger.
The story follows an unnamed narrator who is an Author on a book tour promoting his bestselling novel of the same title. As the Author intersects with characters inspired by different aspects of his personality, Mott’s metafictional tragicomedy weaves together a transportive and evocative treatise on generational trauma, gun violence and mental health..."
https://www.ajc.com/arts-entertainmen...
"Acclaimed North Carolina author Jason Mott made a memorable statement about racial violence in his 2021 National Book Award winner “Hell of a Book” when he introduced his character Soot — a little Black boy who turns invisible when he senses danger.
The story follows an unnamed narrator who is an Author on a book tour promoting his bestselling novel of the same title. As the Author intersects with characters inspired by different aspects of his personality, Mott’s metafictional tragicomedy weaves together a transportive and evocative treatise on generational trauma, gun violence and mental health..."
https://www.ajc.com/arts-entertainmen...
March 18, 2025
All the ways this country will break your heart, that being American is a fever dream of fear and hope and possibility and regression. That's what this novel is. If you loved Jason Mott's "Hell of a Book," then you already know what to expect. If this is your first introduction to Mott, I'll just say to prepare for the unusual experience of grieving alongside characters as they make a madcap dash through the European countryside. It's irreverent and comedic and heart wrenching, sometimes all on the same page.
Reading this now, in March 0f 2025, I cannot imagine how the central questions of this novel will feel in August, closer to the publication date. Who is American? Can the American be taken out of you? What does it mean to love a country and be of a place, rooted in time and historical context? What does it feel like to be safe, and who gets to achieve that kind of comfort and security?
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Reading this now, in March 0f 2025, I cannot imagine how the central questions of this novel will feel in August, closer to the publication date. Who is American? Can the American be taken out of you? What does it mean to love a country and be of a place, rooted in time and historical context? What does it feel like to be safe, and who gets to achieve that kind of comfort and security?
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 19, 2025
I hope I didn’t do myself a disservice by not reading Mott’s Hell of a Book first. I was unaware that People Like us is its quasi-sequel, but it reads just fine as a standalone. I did read up on Hell of a Book (spoilers and all!) for context, and after reading People, I will be reading Hell. How to describe it! A witty, introspective, reality-bending meta tale about an author with a National Book Award by an author with a National Book Award. Autobiographical? Perhaps, but don’t try to guess what’s real. Jumping between two narratives, we get two perspectives of the violence and beauty in the world. We travel back and forth between Europe with its clean-air countryside optimism and our beloved, murky America so heavy with memories, both sad and sweet. Mott’s characters navigate this dreamscape-slash-hellscape, considering the future while guardedly time-traveling through the past. People Like Us is a story about being Black in America and abroad. It’s also a story about guns in America and our intimate relationship with their violence. The emotional highs and lows of this novel made it a compelling and fast read for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton/Penguin Random House for the advanced reader copy of this book.
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