A review by calmcelebration9888
The Measure by Nikki Erlick

1.5

This book falls flat in a way that many dystopian books do. There is a grand idea and the author almost expects it to carry the book, as if interesting characters are not really needed. The problem with this book is the characters. They aren’t particularly well thought out and nothing really happens to them. They are all the same, there is not really good variations of their reactions. They all seem to think discrimination against short stringers are bad (Anthony the exception of course). But other than that, none of them seem to think about their life as a whole and changes they want to make. They just keep living their lives the same as always even though they know they’ll die in a couple years. It just doesn’t seem real at all. If there was any plot point which I thought was on the right track, it was when Maura had the desire to have a kid, knowing that she wouldn’t be there to raise him/her. Now that was where the book should have gone. Instead, it feels like a story where random people read the news and talk about it and that’s it. In today’s world, do we need more news? 

Meanwhile there are all these questions like where did the boxes even come from which nobody seems to care about at all along with why the strings and their boxes are made of materials that the world has never seen before and cannot be destroyed. 

This book is very underwhelming.