The Family Experiment by John Marrs

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

4/5 stars

In the not so distant future tech and AI have taken over, cost of living is horrendous, the NHS barely exists (context indicates that it mainly only helps kids under a certain age), and having a child via IVF is prohibitively expensive. Enter the Metaverse and their groundbreaking new endeavour: a virtual child. Due to be rolled out nationally it opens with a televised competition where the public vote for the best family. The family that wins gets to either keep their virtual child or £250,000 to have a real child of their own.

This was a fascinating concept and while it took a while to get to know the families I loved the progression and how little tidbits of information were slowly revealed throughout the book. All the families had secrets and finding those out was so satisfying. I also really liked the mixed media format with advertisements and social media threads dotted through the book.

The only thing is I wish that the ending was a little more rounded out, it felt a little incomplete. I also would have liked more detail about the world they're living in. What year is it, what has changed, what caused these changes?

Stef Out x