About:
The Measure by Nikki Erlick is a novel in which everyone in the world wakes up to discover a box containing a string signifying their life expectancy. Ms. Erlick is a published writer and New York Times best-selling author.
- 368 pages
- Publisher : William Morrow
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0063204207
My rating forThe Measure – 2
Buy The Measure from Amazon.com*
More Books by Nikki Erlick*
Thoughts:
This book has a very interesting concept, attempting to answer an age-old question: would you like to know when you’ll die?
Each person in the world gets a box at age 22, which includes the string. Each person can decide if they want to open the box or not.
The novel attempts to touch on the societal impact of such an event. The governments, of course, want to know. The military starts basing soldiers’ assignments on the strings, and of course, it becomes a political issue. The antagonists, of course, are conservatives and it seems the author ignored the horseshoe theory and the left-wing extremists which, as we’ve seen, are just as bad and sometimes worse.
I would have liked The Measure by Nikki Erlick to be more dystopian along with a philosophical narrative. All the interesting subjects I mentioned above, and others, are only touched upon but not explored. Instead, the book follows several people, only half are somewhat interesting, and how they deal with these revelations.
The style of telling stories through multiple points of view works, but sometimes backfires. The story moved very slowly, and the quick change of narrative took me out of the story every few pages. Along with that, I did not enjoy the writing, the dialogue was stilted, and it took a long time to get going.
That’s too bad, this is a book with a great premise, but I was not too fond of the execution. The characters are boring, the situations are forced, and the story, which could have been exciting and interesting, is slow and convoluted.
Synopsis:
On the doorstep of every person in the world over 22 years of age, a box appears with a red string that measures their life span. This event throws people’s lives into turmoil, as expected, and governments into a spiral of attempts to control the situation.
The book follows several characters to tell the story from their viewpoints. Two soldiers, one the nephew of a presidential candidate, a lesbian couple, a doctor, and two lonely souls.
Buy The Measure from Amazon.com*
More Books by Nikki Erlick*
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I bought this book
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account, the money is usually spent on books
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