A review by sundazebookcafe
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison

dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Set in a dystopian 1999 New York City (population: 35 million), Make Room! Make Room! is an uncanny speculative fiction about overpopulation and overuse of the planet’s natural resources. I think all novels and reading is political, and this one is explicitly so as well as incredibly depressing, which is good to bear in mind ahead of your own choice to read. 
 
When a gangster is murdered amidst the endless Manhattan heatwave, the city’s police force are under pressure to solve the crime. But due to the overpopulation in NYC, the police have stopped investigating cases since they’ll never be solved anyway – their MO is to control the crowds and keep them in check. And, it’s difficult to catch a killer in streets crammed full of people stretched to their limit, rioting about their circumstances, desperate in a water shortage and fighting over soy and lentil ‘steaks’. 
 
At its heart, Make Room! Make Room! is a social commentary on how humanity would act and work at the brink of ecological and societal collapse. The two work hand in hand here. Written in 1966 and set at the turn of the millennium, it’s fascinating to see how on the nose Harrison was with his agenda. Harrison writes an excellent sentence and bashes out some unnerving social commentary using deeply realistic snapshots of life in this dystopian New York, but sadly the actual story here missed the mark for me. First, the racial slurs throughout made me feel deeply uncomfortable and I’d extend a warning to my East Asian, Black and Hispanic readers here. Second, I just didn’t gel with the whole following a cop around and cop-gets-girl vibe. But, I appreciate the overall commentary being made. 
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