Review: This book cost me an entire night’s sleep
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 28, 2013
I’m a mom of four (including an infant, an 8 year old with autism, and two teenagers), so my reading time is both limited and precious. So is my sleeping time. And this book cost me several hour’s worth of sleep, because I just couldn’t stop reading. I literally stayed up all night to finish reading it. That’s pretty much the highest recommendation I can give a book.I adore dystopian literature, both YA and adult – some of my favorite books include Lois Lowry’s “The Giver” and George Orwell’s “1984”. I believe that fans of these books (or more recently, The Hunger Games) would greatly enjoy this book.Life First is set in the future in the former United States of America. The exact year isn’t specified, but we learn that 80% of the population was wiped out in a pandemic 100 years or so ago. The Federation of Surviving States (FoSS) has a government and laws that are loosely based on those of the US, but with changes that were made due to the drastically reduced population. One of the laws is that every healthy person must be registered in a database; if someone needs something you can provide in order to survive – like your blood, your bone marrow, or one of your kidneys, for example – then you are legally obligated to provide the necessary organ(s) and/or tissues (so long as you have an 80% or greater chance of living through the surgery). This is what the national slogan of “Life First” means.Kelsey is a woman in her early 20s who has been “marked” to donate one of her kidneys to a stranger who needs one. Given certain experiences in her life, she is not a supporter of the Life First mandate, and makes plans to escape having to make the “donation.” But in the FoSS, there are heavy consequences for fleeing a donation, and if she’s caught she will be punished severely.On the negative side (and I’m grasping here), there are some plot issues that might require a little suspension of disbelief. I can’t go into details on those issues without giving away spoilers, but I will say that those issues are very minor, and well worth suspending disbelief for. There are also a couple of small editing errors (typos/spelling – things like using “it’s” instead of “its” or “gate” instead of “gait”).This is a very fast-paced, quick read, yet some of the ethical questions it raises about pro-life versus pro-choice and to what lengths society should go to preserve life could be discussed long after the book is finished. I really enjoyed this book, and finished it in one sitting (or as close to “one sitting” as a mom is allowed to have); highly recommended!**I received a complimentary copy of this ebook in exchange for my unbiased review; all opinions expressed are entirely my own**