Genre: Science Fiction | General Fiction |
Release Date: Expected 15th June 2023
Publisher: Legend Press
When Ben and Sophie met, it seemed like they'd live long lives together, grow old together and die peacefully surrounded by their family.
But when the Evergreens project launches, their future isn't so certain anymore. It offers the chance to be young endlessly, to live ten or more lifetimes, to control life and death. Ben immediately signs up to the experimental trial, ready to escape his mortality but Sophie isn't so sure. It seems too good to be true, too far.
And now decades later as Ben lies unresponsive in a hospital bed she knows she was right. In front of her eyes, the youthful boy he'd been for so long starts to wither and fade away, the years taking their toll. And as officials start lurking around, it's clear something darker was happening at the Evergreens project, and she needs to find out what. But the timer has started for Ben again, so she needs to do it before it's too late.
"And how lucky she is to love and be loved."
In this modern, polished world where holograms work as nurses, beds make themselves and armies are run by algorithms; it feels like a utopia but even from the first few lines you just know something is wrong. The world felt so familiar but so strange - the alienating feeling setting a spectacular and immersive scene.
Sophie is beautiful, magnetic; she's clearly troubled and lost but loves deeply. Her feelings for Ben shine through as she tells us the stories of their youth, with a playful nostalgic air that was so warm. Together we explore the highs and lows of two lives together and apart - the fractures that can form when a relationship becomes imbalanced. They were able to navigate the divides of class and wealth between them, but is mortality and youth just too much to handle?
This story balances a love story with an intriguing mystery in a futuristic world that quietly unravels in front of our eyes, drawing some terrifying parallels to a world we already know where the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful because they're making the rules.
It moves slowly, building up the story of Sophie and Ben, explaining how they came to be and all the little moments that led them here, before quickly shifting to the dangers of the present day to solve a horrific puzzle. We get to know them intimately - watching them as they find, lose and find themselves all over again - although there was a little too much time spent on teen angst and petty fighting before the story kept moving for me and it left me waiting for something else to happen. And while I absolutely loved the ideas, this exploration into how these kinds of advancement would affect not just the world but our connections with others, our main characters spend 90% of this book hating each other, not talking or point scoring and it made it very difficult to find a connection with them specifically and I wasn't able to find any real closure in their tale. Although there were absolutely beautiful moments that showed the difficulty and the joy of relationships in their different forms.
A sweeping tale about what it is to be human; heartbreaking and affirming.
⭐⭐⭐
I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.
CW: alcohol dependence, binge eating, violence, infertility, hospitals, dementia, death.
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