People Like Us - by Jason Mott (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR--Time--Atlanta Journal-Constitution--Star Tribune (Minneapolis)--Library Journal--Kirkus

Longlisted for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Finalist for the Willie Morris Awards for Southern Fiction
Finalist for the BookTube Prize for Fiction
One of TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2025
One of USA Today's 15 Books You Should Read This Summer
One of Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Hot New Summer Reads
One of People's Most Anticipated Summer Books
One of Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025
A Late Show Book Club pick

The riveting novel by the author of the National Book Award winner and bestseller Hell of a Book

In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world riven with violence. One is on a global book tour after winning a big prize; the other is set to speak at a school that has suffered a tragedy. And as the authors' storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: from tiny French cars and melancholy winter hotel rooms, from humble family land to the wealthiest estates, this book asks us to witness people and their dreams enduring against all odds.

You will meet larger-than-life characters who deliver very real takes on our world. They experience deep loss and longing; they are also buoyed by riotous humor and share the deepest love. It is the latest creation of a writer whose work will leave you breathless, filled with joy for life, and changed forever by characters who are people like us. 

Review Quotes

Praise for People Like Us

THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"A captivating fever dream of a novel about memory, belonging, and what it's like to live as a Black writer in America today. Not all fever dreams are funny, but this one actually is." --Stephen Colbert, The Late Show, A Late Show Book Club pick

"The follow-up to Mott's National Book Award-winning Hell of a Book weaves the stories of two Black authors -- one on an international book tour, the other confronting a deadly school shooting -- into a comedic, surreal exploration of love and loss." --The New York Times

"[S]o timely and close to home you won't know whether to close your window or stick your head out for a better view. Either way, you won't forget what you see, even when it's difficult." --The New York Times Sunday Newsletter

"[A] playfully experimental novel... Flitting between the story lines of the two writers in pithy and punchy chapters, often with revelatory endings, "People Like Us" offers a timely warning about the perilous state of the nation." --The New York Times Book Review

"Part memoir, part travelogue, part fever dream, Mott's novel deploys wicked humor and pathos to explore issues around race, gun violence, fame and mental health." --Atlanta Journal Constitution, "These Hot New Southern Reads Belong on Your Summer List"

"A meta-novel that stings and touches the reader.... The whole book seems the literary equivalent of a post-bop jazz performance, with oblique happenings that compel attention because of the book's antic energy and lyrical passages." --Kirkus (starred review)

"Mott's writing is funny, intelligent, and sharp as a knife....This book is full of action, suspense, and laughs. Its reflections about being a Black American in Europe are insightful. Jump in for a full-force, visceral ride." --Library Journal (starred review)

"Picking up in a universe near the one represented in Mott's last book, the award-winning Hell of A Book, People Like Us involves the same tonal gymnastics. Mott's writing is electric. Sentences zing with the energy of darts. But all that riz ultimately serves to convey a lacerating critique of American gun violence. File this one under 'genre-bending tour-de-force.'" --Lit Hub

"Mott's latest is a thought-provoking fever dream that offers an uncompromising look at the cost of gun violence." --TIME Magazine, The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025

[An] "electric novel about two Black writers who set out on wildly different book tours. ... Populated by larger-than-life characters, this tour de force is at once gut-bustingly funny and deeply moving." --PEOPLE, Book of the Week, Best Books of August 2025

"Filled with highlightable quotes and moments that make you stop and look around to see if anyone else is experiencing what you're reading, Mott's "People Like Us" echoes the pain and mystery of where life leads, the choices it hands us and the hope and desire for change." --Associated Press

"A mind-bending metanarrative that's funny, frightening and altogether impossible to pin down. ... [A] slippery dance between the surreal and the all-too-real paradoxes of living Black in America." --NPR

"Funny and affecting" --Los Angeles Times

"One of the year's best novels" --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A searing satire about literary success" --The Washington Post

"Mott follows up his 2021 National Book Award-winning novel Hell of a Book with a surreal and intimate story about two Black writers contending with loss, longing, and gun violence." --The Millions

"It's rare to hear how big awards change authors. ... But in Jason Mott's new novel, we might finally get some real answers." --NPR's Book of the Day

"The novel's mischievous humor gradually gives way to a frightening fever dream. Mott's satire is thoroughly uncompromising, which makes it all the more refreshing." --Publishers Weekly

"A dynamic text moving faster than the pages turn, this is a novel true to our time's search for a path forward--one that even dares to dream of togetherness." --Booklist

"A book that begs for an immediate reread, People Like Us hits the soul hard. It is haunting, vivid literary fiction at its finest." --BookPage (starred review)

"Mott's latest is even more dazzling: a sharp-witted satire on race and the literary life, a raging indictment of our addiction to guns, a novel both propulsive and deeply thoughtful." --The Boston Globe

"In a novel that first began as a memoir, Mott ("Hell of a Book") brilliantly explores the nature of grief, fear, hope and joy through the story of two Black writers trying to find peace and belonging in a violent world." --Atlanta Journal Constitution

"Mott pulls together these disparate elements with his deft prose, delivering a funny, sharp commentary on contemporary America." --AV Club

"A satire that turns on the relationships between Black writers and the publishing world." --The Detroit News

"A brilliant story of grief, fear, hope and joy" --Poured Over: The B&N Podcast

About the Author

Jason Mott has published four novels. His first novel, The Returned, was a New York Times bestseller and was turned into a TV series that ran for two seasons. He has a BFA in fiction and an MFA in poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary journals, and his most recent novel, Hell of a Book, was named the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 2021.