Reviews

• A Bad Escape

  I highly suspect that if I had read this book while in my teens (disregarding the unlikely event of a time warp), I might have been far more sympathetic towards the main character, Jesse, because I would likely have empathized with her deep desire to help save the world. However, now in my cynical sixties, I find Jesse to be dangerously idealistic, self centered and much akin to the radical extremists who terrorized her futuristic world and who currently terrorize ours. I find so many parallels between Jesse's emotional responses to the perils of her times and the prevailing and debilitating fears -- both real and imagined -- of today's youths who turn to suicide for escape. Because suicide is exactly what Jesse has chosen, although she paints this decision with a palette of socially redeeming colors, convinced as she is that she is helping to save all humanity from the curse inflicted by bio-terrorists. Rubbish. I do not applaud Jesse's acts, probably because I identify so much with her parents. How she rebels against them and hurts them so deeply far outweighs what minute good her sacrifice might do for humanity. If any at all. Jesse's own words reflect the thoughts of so many people who are about to end their lives: "I'm enjoying the way it is receding, all worries becoming flimsy, as easy to brush away as cobwebs." This book actually appears to encourage suicide! As I was reading, I kept hoping for a morally satisfactory ending. It didn't happen. I sincerely hope, for the sake of folks who may be contemplating ending their own lives, that this book does NOT become a movie. Any success it may have at the box office could result in more tragic endings for those on the verge of the ultimate escape.

• One Star

  I didn't like anything about this book.

• A very impressive book

  I don't believe that Jane Rogers has ever written a bad book, but this is probably her best so far. It's a dystopian vision worthy of standing alongside Doris Lessing's 'Memoirs of a Survivor' and Maggie Gee's 'The Ice People'. Like those books, it draws much of its power from its ability to relate to our own world, to make us feel that the scenario presented is perfectly believable. It doesn't really matter if the science is a bit dodgy - it almost certainly is - or the plot a little creaky - things develop a bit too quickly, for example - so long as we can believe in the people and their reactions, and we can. You could argue that the ending is predictable but surely this is because the author spends the whole book persuading us that it is the only ending possible and right up till the end the reader is hoping that there'll be some way out for Jessie. Indeed there is in a way, since the possibility that the implantation of the foetus may not be successful is mentioned, but we know in our hearts that things can only end one way. It's a gripping tale, but not just that - it's also a book of ideas and throughout you are invited to consier the moral dilemmas with which society, and particularly the main characters, are having to grapple. I can only say that I'm looking forward to Rogers' next book.

• Predictable, and with a shockingly annoying protagonist. Skip it.

  The idea presented in this book is interesting: a world where there are no more births due to a virus of unknown origin. Scientists need to find a way to carry on the human race, otherwise our race will be extinct within lifetime. Jane Rogers' execution of this idea was poor. My main issue was with the protagonist, Jessie. To put it bluntly, she's a whiny, self-absorbed teenager who thinks she's the most important person in the world. Most of the book is her complaining that she knows better than all the grownups but that no one listens to her, which means they're clearly idiots. The more this character was developed, the less I liked her or cared about the story. Another huge problem I had with this book was how often the author seemed to want to add animal rights to the story, despite it being unimportant. I'm pretty much going to guess that the author is vegan or an animal rights activist, and wanted to shove it in wherever she could. It was an annoyance. Third, and this is more of an editing problem than an author one, but I found so many typos that I kept getting distracted from the story. And lastly, the book is so predictable that it's ridiculously boring. After reading the first 50 pages I had it figured out. Do yourselves a favor and read something else. There are a lot of amazing books within this genre that are significantly better.

• A Great Idea But I Couldn't Warm To The Characters

  Jane Rogers is excellent in putting questions into the reader's head; why is Jessie restrained? who is restraining her? where is she? And as the novel opened I immediately felt a parallel with Emma Donoghue's "Room". But as it developed I felt a much greater parallel with Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, another novel set in a dystopian not so distant future. In Ishiguro's book the protagonists don't have choice or free will whereas Jessie Lamb has both and it is here that the novel fell down for me. I don't want to spoil the plot but a manmade deadly virus giving all pregnant women a form of CJD has been released into the world and Jessie wants to help the medics in their fight against it. She's sixteen and we know that sixteen year olds can sometimes be irrational but the reasoning behind her decisions don't ring true for me at all. None of the characters has any real substance or passion and, although it's great idea and very readable and I loved the way the author made me think, it doesn't have the same beauty as Never Let Me Go and I couldn't warm to Jessie, her parents or any of her friends. It's a story that should have left me in tears but sadly didn't.

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