Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Marriage Act

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Marriage Act by John Marrs

25 reviews

carissa230's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

In traditional John Marrs fashion we have a dystopian future where the government is in control of people's lives. In the Marriage Act people who choosed to get a Smart Marriage are granted better access to health care, better homes, education, higher pay, all for the low cost of giving up your privacy and letting AI tell you how well your marriage is going.

We follow multiple couples within The Marriage Act. Some think Smart Marriages are great, others that hate it, but want the benefits, and others that outright hate it and work with the Freedom fighers of their time. The system can choose if you stay married, if you should divorce, and it's not always about the couple. Politics of course pay a huge part in all of this.

The thing about these books is they're far fetched, but they're not. I could see people that would gladly give up their privacy for better things in life. People do it all the time on social media willingly. The problem is that freedom is important, privacy is essential. As humans you need the right and ability to make decisions for yourself.

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yvo_about_books's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

3.75

Finished reading: March 20th 2024

"In the end, it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t rewrite the past. She could only ensure she didn’t repeat her mistakes."

It's no secret that I consider John Marrs to be one of my favorite thriller authors, and I've read and loved the majority of his books. It's true that I tend to enjoy his dystopian/speculative thrillers most though... The Marriage Act is a stand-alone set in the same alternate near future as for example The One and The Passengers. I'm still not sure why I hadn't read it until now considering it was a most anticipated release last year... But since I was approved for the ARC of his newest story set in the same universe, I decided to play catch-up and read The Marriage Act first. It's true that each book can be read as a stand-alone, but there are some references to the previous books that you might not pick up otherwise. I have to say that this author is SO exceptional at creating extremely plausible and basically terrifying alternate futures... And this story is no different. The concept behind The Marriage Act is no less than brilliant, and its premise blew me away. Why not give it the full five stars then? This mostly had to do with the multiple POV structure slowing down the pace considerably, and the POV switches were too frequent as well. It took a little while to successfully keep all the characters apart, although I can't deny that the way the different POVs start connecting is very clever. What also put a minor damper on things was the fact that the majority of the characters are extremely unlikeable and flawed, and this made it hard to start rooting for them. The Marriage Act can get pretty dark and a lot of unpleasant secrets and trigger warning worthy topics are incorporated along the way... Some was used to show just how corrupt and terrifying this alternate future was, but still. There is no denying that the story as a whole will stay with me for quite some time though, and it's another successful speculative thriller that makes you wonder if things could really escalate to that level.

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auscaz's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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chrleee's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

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nemss's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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jaipsmith's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

nerdyprettythings's review against another edition

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dark tense

3.5

Set in the future of the world from The One (which I really loved!), this one was a little bit of a miss for me. I still really enjoyed some of the thriller aspects, but this one is much more BLEAK y’all! I feel like The One was already pretty heavy in parts, but ultimately hopeful. There are very few characters to root for here, and at the center of the story is a cartoonish government conspiracy with one shadowy main figure. I just don’t think the world was as thought through, or maybe it reflects like tech-fear headlines that are outdated now.
Also, it’s a super conservative future world where staying married is cynically the goal because it’s best for the economy - but then people say things like “body shaming is a thought crime.” So whose totalitarian future are we in? These sort of random “oh that’s illegal now” felt anachronistic.
Definitely check the TWs on this one, basically all the bad stuff happens and a lot of things are described graphically

Content Warnings