Book Review: ‘Suicide Club: A Novel About Living’ Asks The Question Would You Want To Live Forever With Restrictions?

by | Jun 28, 2018 | Books | 0 comments

New York City in the future where people can live a long live and maybe forever. When you are born you will find out. It involves The Ministry and rules that you must live by. It also means getting replacement parts and constant monitoring. For Lea Kirino she is a lifer. She has done everything right and is projected to live a long life. Especially now that The Third Wave is coming. Lea is a stock trader of human organs and very successful. She lives with her finance and is on the verge of getting a promotion.

They one day while walking to work she sees her father. She hasn’t seen him for almost 88 years. When she starts to follow him she isn’t paying attention and almost gets hit by a car. This raises a flag with The Ministry and she is put on an observation list as someone that tried to kill herself. It’s difficult to kill yourself as one of these people but not impossible. Lea wasn’t but is afraid to tell the truth about her father being back. He left all those years ago and was in trouble. Now he finds her and they start to reconnect. This causes Lea’s life to spiral down. She is now being observed, has to go to counseling meetings and ends up losing her boyfriend.

Lea also is introduced to the world of the Suicide Club. A club where people that don’t want to live or deal with this new way of life kill themselves and celebrate it. The deeper Lea gets in the deeper her life spirals out of control. She starts to question everything and if there people are justified or need help. Lea soon takes stock in her life and has to decide once and for all what she wants.

A fascinating, original story of what a future could look like. The characters and story flow and it is an interesting thought about what would you do if you had could live a long time, maybe forever with restrictions on how you have to live your life. This is author Rachel Heng’s debut novel and I for one look forward to many more from her!

You can pick up Suicide Club in stores on Tuesday, July 10 from Henry Holt and Co.