A review by 600bars
The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell

5.0

Dystopian stories have been done to death and we are all sick of them, especially the pandemic variety, for obvious reasons. But this one is different I swear! The Only Ones is Dibbell’s debut novel and it was published when she was 70 years old. It’s about a 19 year old, Inez, who lives in a pandemic ridden near future. She’s immune to all diseases, so she sells her body parts to labs and companies that want to make use of her tissue. Inez gets involved in a fertility scheme to make immune clones for rich people, but the situation backfires and she ends up raising her clone as her daughter. Society has sorta rebounded, but not really. Fertility is obviously a major issue after so much sickness and death. Most of the book chronicles Inez’s struggle to raise Ani in the decaying world. It sounds from this description like your run of the mill dystopian novel, but it had something special! I loved Inez’s voice and I felt very touched by her journey trying to keep Ani alive. I was like a puddle tbh it got me