Universality by Natasha Brown | book review
A Booker-longlisted novel I admired more than I enjoyed
I understand why Universality by Natasha Brown was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, but I still don’t like it. Perhaps it was because I read the first few pages a bit too quickly, but there were simply too many characters and storylines pulling in different directions—albeit all connected by the mystery of a solid gold bar used as an assault weapon. The bar is then stolen from the Yorkshire farm of a wealthy, disgraced banker, which has become the headquarters of a radical anarchist movement and site of illegal lockdown raves.
Universality is known partly for showcasing people from different corners of society, from representations of rather conceited posh people—those removed from the reality of most people—to the outsiders trying to evade both norms and society. In that sense, it is reminiscent of Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan (read my full book review here), but unlike that novel, I couldn’t enjoy this one.
The characters, even the ones from more humble backgrounds, come across as pretentious and indulgent, and I have little patience for them. I will note here that I do not object to Brown’s writing. In fact, I think she’s a great writer. My visceral distaste for Universality isn’t about her style; it’s because of the very fact that she does a fantastic job at portraying a world I do not like. It is this unsettling accuracy that makes Brown a great author, and why Universality was Booker Prize-longlisted. Further, though I did not have as intense or tortured a reading experience as I did with Caledonian Road (as you can see in my reading log), Universality has the benefit of being quite short, at 152 pages, and I admire how much Brown packs into these pages. This conciseness, Brown told the Financial Times, is intentional. When she writes, she asks herself: ‘Can you read it one-handed, squashed on the Central line?’
Brown studied mathematics at Cambridge, then worked in financial services for over a decade, writing a handful of words here and there each day. I’m fascinated by writers who cross over from corporate careers—as someone working in financial services myself, I see both how improbable and how fitting that path can be. Corporate work sometimes gets a bad reputation, especially amongst people in creative fields, but it allows a deep look into what makes society tick and keeps the economy churning.
Even though I didn’t enjoy Universality, I admire Brown’s unflinching eye: she refuses to make her characters more palatable or her depictions more flattering. While researching Brown for my author deep dive (more below), I gained a far deeper appreciation for her work that makes me want to examine it further. Her debut, Assembly, apparently zooms in on a single consciousness, an intriguing contrast to the ensemble sprawl of Universality. I’ve added Assembly to my TBR and look forward to whatever she writes next, though as Brown sees herself returning to a STEM career, that is not guaranteed (learn more in my author deep dive).
Have you read Universality by Natasha Brown or Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan? Share your thoughts!
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Book club guide for Universality by Natasha Brown
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Book information
Title: Universality
Author: Natasha Brown
Published: 2025
Length: 152 pages
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Loved your review Alicia! Funnily I’m the other way round. I really enjoyed universiality. As you said it’s a short punchy novel and I managed to read in a couple of sittings so was very much swept up in the characters. Caledonian Road I thought was good but I struggled with the protagonist he grated on me!
Hi Alicia, I read Universality this summer and I feel similarly. I understand why it was Booker long listed but didn't love it. I didn't know Brown worked in finance before breaking through. I work in an adjacent field. I wrote my own post on Universality here: https://open.substack.com/pub/davenashiswriting/p/memes-rage-and-borrowed?r=40mr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web