Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - The Marriage Act

It's hard to be disappointed with a Marrs novel, but when I say I was MAD and a little terrified by the end of this.. lol

I started the marriage act after getting about 50 pages into the Family Experiment and I'm really glad I did. Talk about infuriating though.

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taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

2.75

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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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d0505's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective slow-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

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xwritingstoriesx's review against another edition

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reflective tense medium-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

4.75

John Marrs is the trailblazer of modern-day British dystopias. Each concept is so distinctive and yet well within the realms of possibility. I could genuinely see this taking place in fifty years time. I really appreciated the references to British politics, "historical" events and public figures throughout. I also enjoyed the cross referencing of other works. If you've yet to read The Passengers or The One, there may be very minor spoilers for you but I don't think you need to read them first in order to read this book.

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effy's review against another edition

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4.25

The multiple POVs in this book meant that it took me a minute to get into this book but once I did I really enjoyed it. This was a welcome return to form for Marrs as he was completely unafraid to go as dark and twisted as the story demanded. The concept of the "Smart Marriage" was a really interesting one and the direction that it went essentially asking whether a government that was comfortable with monitoring that aspect of the population's lives would stop there.

This book was full of quite a satisfying number of twists and turns that left me audibly gasping as they were revealed. Whilst all of Marr's speculative works do have quite a Black Mirror feel to them, this was probably the book that felt most like an episode of Black Mirror and I was so here for it!

I feel quite emotional about the fact that finishing this book means that for now, my journey with John Marrs is at an end but I know that this is just a temporary break of journey until the next book comes out because Marrs is now one of my favourite authors whether he is writing thrillers or speculative fiction. Until next time...

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stacey_reads_books's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I quite enjoyed this book. It was that kind of satirical, dystopian fiction where it's not too much of a push to imagine that this could happen in the not too distant future of society. It held my interest and there were a few twists that I didn't see coming but I did have difficulty connecting with some of the characters, at times they felt a bit 2D. Possibly that is because there were many different characters and the book rotates between the POV of a few of them.

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