Review: 4.5 stars, great world building
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 17, 2012
4.5 stars.This feels a bit different from other JCP's books. I usually feel that, even if she can devise the most different settings and plots, her stories are very character-driven. In this story the world building became more prominent.Ernest is living the last 30 days of his life. In this world, once you reach thirty, you reach old age in thirty days and then you are given your just reward and your soul is set free. Ernest tries to pack different experiences before his time is due and he enters a coffee shop. Here he meets Will, a clerk who seems so much different from the people Ernest has met until now. It's as if Will can see that there's something different in Ernest and he plants in him a seed of doubt and maybe revolution.Day after day Ernest discovers that what he's been taught was a lie, he learns to lie himself, he learns to drink, he learns what his body can do once it's detached from the machine where he's lived his whole life.There are wonderful details: the shunts that are used to feed human beings, the religious bent the society has taken to justify its organization, the scientific development tinged with spiritual beliefs, the cloning, the purging, everything in the best dystopian tradition.As in all JCP's books there is a lot of humor: the way Ernest learns to read expressions, his approach to porn, his naivety coupled with his fast learning skills, but also his natural curiosity that brings him into the most unexpected situations.I think the ending was a bit abrupt. There were a lot of secondary characters added at the end of the story and I was sort of expecting something more. Once the world develops outside the narrow confines of the city, the story comes to a stop. There was room to tell a story at least twice longer and I hope the author will tackle this story once again and give the characters itchy feet.