Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

49 reviews

julham's profile picture

julham's review

4.5
emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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ksilvio's review

5.0
emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

this book asks the ultimate question: if you could find out how long you were going to live, would you?

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vreads3's review

4.0
challenging emotional sad tense

Fascinating story concepts delivered with refreshing originality and exceptionally believable. 

This is not a literary escape, this is a deep dive analysis of society and human behavior and what we do with global scale change. It's a severely plausible, pointed and poignant what-if scenario pushed to the extreme, but possible end of thought experiment.

Lots of explicit language unfortunately, but a surprisingly well balanced cast of realistic and diverse characters with just enough depth to keep each of them interesting, sympathetic and on the edge of your seat waiting for their outcomes. 

 (The high believability might be triggering as there are TONS of real world scenarios of hate crime, etc).

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hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I found this to be a thoughtful novel of ideas, an exploration of a parallel world with one small sci-fi change in world structure, similar to Exit West. By small, I mean not in impact, but that there's one supernatural element added to a world otherwise matching ours with no further universal meddling or intervention afterwards. In Exit West, it's
magic doors that let people travel anywhere in the world instantly.
. In The Measure, on their 22nd birthday, people receive a box containing a string whose length indicates the length of their life. In the worst outcomes, becomes another identity measure by which discrimination can occur and prompts despair. At it's best, such knowledge changes how people plan their lives and relate to each other. 

I liked the characters through which we follow this idea. I found them very empathetic and realistic in the way they embodied the diverse reactions to learning one's own endpoint. In particular, I liked the paths of Amy the schoolteacher and Hank the surgeon. I was hoping that by the end
there would be further complication of the title/message in the box about "the measure" of a life going beyond length. I suppose the characters had to reflect on personal definitions of measuring their lives, but I wanted the supernatural meaning to be a bit less literal.
Oh well!

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

3.5 stars
Recommend

I totally get WHY this book was and is so popular almost three years after its release. This novel is a thought-provoking book that is PERFECT for book clubs. It was an easy read on audiobook. But, I think this book was perfect for readers and book clubs after the pandemic. It was escapism in a speculative and dystopian way. 

The writing and character development were the weakest parts of this debut novel. I wanted more of the before and after "thread times". Plus, there were just too many characters!

The premise was great, but just not executed. This book could have been so much more. Unfortunately, I could correctly foretell what would happen after reading/ about halfway through the book. 

For a more detailed review, check out my blog - booksbydorothea:
https://booksbydorothea.blogspot.com/2025/05/review-measure-audiobook.html

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sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

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millyo's profile picture

millyo's review

5.0
emotional reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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reading_in_genes's profile picture

reading_in_genes's review

5.0
challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Emotional and reflective novel that asks the reader to ponder deep questions along with the characters. The ending had me in tears in the best possible way.

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