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A review by b0okcupidity
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
3.0
If the outrageous idea that everyone in the world would have a box arrive at their door with a string that revealed the length of their life was enough to hook you into this sci-fi like it did me, you may be disappointed with the execution. That high concept is completely glossed over. Instead, the juicy questions that humanity grapples with leaves us, the reader, to question what our own choices would be. Do you open the box? How do you proceed? Do you view others in the same way? How do you cope when governments make choices for you? How do you cope when those you love make choices you do not agree with? Wait...these are mostly the questions we already must address...so, really, good sci-fi is turning a mirror on our problems in search of an answer? I like to think so.
By time I made it half-way through the book I was pretty depressed. I didn't particularly LOVE the characters how they were written and overall, the sense of dread was palpable. Inevitably in a story like this with the frame of known life expectancy, we are dealing with short stringers - those we know are going to bite it soon - so it was hard for me to stay engaged (I have a hard time with misery in books and isn't the trudge of jealousy, denial, desperation, and sadness, understandable feelings to someone who is counting their days, harder for those living it? Surely. So, I had a bit of readers guilt too!). But I did really enjoy the themes this entire subject curated and the constant search for hope because you knew it was there, it had to be.
Hope is a guy on a bicycle with a boombox playing Doris Day, weaving his way through the tangled streets of New York, popping up here and there, like a pop of color in the tapestry that your eye is drawn to.
Hope is there, my friend. I love it when a book's answer is as beautifully simple as that.
First 70% 2 stars, last 30% 4+ stars.
By time I made it half-way through the book I was pretty depressed. I didn't particularly LOVE the characters how they were written and overall, the sense of dread was palpable. Inevitably in a story like this with the frame of known life expectancy, we are dealing with short stringers - those we know are going to bite it soon - so it was hard for me to stay engaged (I have a hard time with misery in books and isn't the trudge of jealousy, denial, desperation, and sadness, understandable feelings to someone who is counting their days, harder for those living it? Surely. So, I had a bit of readers guilt too!). But I did really enjoy the themes this entire subject curated and the constant search for hope because you knew it was there, it had to be.
Hope is a guy on a bicycle with a boombox playing Doris Day, weaving his way through the tangled streets of New York, popping up here and there, like a pop of color in the tapestry that your eye is drawn to.
Hope is there, my friend. I love it when a book's answer is as beautifully simple as that.
First 70% 2 stars, last 30% 4+ stars.