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REVIEW: The Family Experiment by John Marrs


The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child or risk it all for the chance of a real baby . . .

When I tell you John Mars has snuck up on me; damn! I’ve always enjoyed his writing, but recently his talent for crafting the most twisted versions of reality is honestly concerning and I can’t get enough of it.

The Family Experiment is a warped portrait that captures the zeitgeist of todays world; the frustrations, the impossibility of affording a happy life, the crushing depression and the subtle but powerful grabs for control and power from oppressors - it’s like looking through a broken mirror out to the world in a way that’s frighteningly possible, building on the broken Britain created in “The Marriage Act.” Mars crafts the setting to feel so familiar to truth so everything just feels that much more uncomfortable, complete with adverts and media from this odd version of the world showing a technologically advanced society full of possibility but moving further from humanity; slowly shifting from a sense of mundanity into something suspicious and suffocating where every part of your life is controlled and up for sale.

We follow five couples, and single dad Hudson on their own individual journeys, jumping between their stories with quick chapters - but each perspective was so distinct that it was so easy to follow and get attached to every single one of them after we figure out who is who. As the competition progresses, each little chapter offers slices of life that felt almost like scrolling through reels or TikTok of our favourite reality TV show, short form snippets, little moments of daily life to see before moving on.

But then secrets, lies and plots start to move to the surface and the stories begin to crash together in an explosive way; suspicion being thrown everywhere with the players lives falling apart seemingly at random and the mysterious producers still being just a figment in the computer, watching with us as the threads of these stories weave together until the true motives are revealed and I can tell you I WAS SCREAMING.

Get ready to meet the most disturbing Tamagotchi in existence, and play The Family Experiment.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

  • I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title. 

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