The two stars are for: fairly decent writing, it wasn't a rabib page turner, but it was relatively easy going for the most part.
The second star is for such an interesting idea: a cure for death - or more specifically, a genetic cure for the aging of cells.
The story leaps right into this concept and the mental struggle the protagonist, John, faces with the prospect of living forever (or until something else kills him).
The possibilities of this concept are endless…but it felt like this book struggled to grapple with these ideas and, for me, just failed to follow through.
For instance, there's a key character (you'd be lead to think) that appears right at the start, that captures John's intrigue (and frankly I thought they were related to "thriller", but apparently not). This character then isn't mentioned at all for the majority of the book, and then around 85% of the way through when they suddenly reappear and John suddenly declares his undying love.
She sighed. “I told you. I’m tired of men falling in love with me.” “I don’t give a shit.” I moved to her and began kissing her.
Oh for heaven's sake. She just suddenly does a 180 on her own feelings and goes for a full shag before leaping off to a nuclear winter.
The story spends a solid half of the book on John and his family and surrounding and the (local) effect of the cure. No thriller in sight, and certainly no End Specialists. I can't tell if this was more of a drama or just a lot of character building, but it really didn't feel like I got into the meat of the book until much, much further along.
This book comes with an alternative title of "Postmortals" (I read The End Specialist), which would frankly makes a lot more sense. As for being a thriller - I don't think so.
Also with this kind of massive change in humanity, the worldwide ramifications would be huge, and though John does try to portray these in his documentary-like updates (a blog?), it really feels quite local to Amuricka.
Sadly the book deals with an excellent concept, but fails to deliver.
11 Highlight(s)
What this cure guarantees is that you will never die a natural, peaceful death.
It's like the people who died just as TV was being invented. That had to have been aggravating.
It's not that people don't want to die. It's that they don't want to grow old.
Studies of terra trolling are nonexistent, and laws against it are just now coming into shape. There's no data for committed terra troll crimes as of yet.
Well, how else can you react? Laughter helps to cover it all up for me. I don't know how else to deal with the memory.
They literally can't hurt you. It's against their stupid religion." "Hurting people is against every religion, but people do it anyway.
David as an infant, chewing on his own lower lip. I tried to gather all of it up, like a spilled drink racing to the edge of a table. I tried to paint their commemorative portraits in my mind, but I found their memories etched in sand, quickly wiped away.
The flu virus probably attacked Freddie's body multiple times, only to be rebuffed by her immune system. But nature has an unlimited power to adapt to its environs to suit its needs—to sustain itself.
That was the blessing of the cure to me. It wasn't about the wool or the food. It was that you never had to worry about love ending."
She sighed. "I told you. I'm tired of men falling in love with me." "I don't give a shit." I moved to her and began kissing her.
"You're very sneaky," she said. I held nothing back. "I want to marry you. I want to marry you and be that child's father. You don't have to agree to it.