Review by: Lauren
Review Copy, but All Opinions are My Own
Official Summary:
Old age can never kill him now.
The only problem is, everything else still can . . .
Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors.
Review: This book is unlike anything I’ve ever really read. It starts in June 2019 and then ends in June 2079. Now, the book doesn’t deal with every moment of all those years, of course. There are a few sections and each time a new one starts, it has jumped to another ten years in the future. However, the entire book does focus on one man named John Farrell. He has the cure for aging so he won’t just suddently die from being too old. However, he can still die from other things. He can get in an accident, get cancer, commit suicide, and anything you can imagine. As such, it’s kind of amazing how long John does live.
This book gives you all sorts of things to think about. It’s very interesting in terms of science, psychology, philosophy, and will definitely keep you thinking. It’s not a heavy book though. It’s easy to read and I flipped through the book as fast as I could, equally fascinated and horrified by this future world. Because even though the cure for old age has been found, that doesn’t mean that everyone agrees. There are people that actively fight against this new life. They refuse to get the cure, but more than that, they assassinate doctors that give it…and even go after your regular men and women that got it.
One of the things that really worked in the book’s favor is how it’s set up. It’s a collection of, what’s essentially, blog entries by John as he goes through life. He also includes newspaper articles that dictate events happening, interviews that were published online, and other bits of information that continuously place you in the world that John lives in. You feel a part of it. You question whether you would get the cure or not. You wonder how certain people can do these atrocious things, and not just those that oppose the cure. It’s a very fascinating book and one of the most original stories I’ve read in awhile. It would make a great film, though I think it might be hard to pull it off in the same way the book does.
Finally, I must mention the chapter titles. I’ve actually thought about doing this for my own writing (and maybe I still will) but now I know it’s in at least in one book already published. Some of the titles are actually a quote that will appear somewhere in that particular chapter. Here are a few for example:
“You said you’d love me forever”, “A little bit of bloodshed now or a lot later on”, and “You look just like me.”
Don’t these all make you want to read further? I love it! Again, not all the chapters have a title like this, but I would say most of them do…or at the least, half of them do.
Sounds like a great book. This one is going on my wishlist. Thanks for your review!!
That sounds a little morbid, but fascinating too!
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