Rating: 5/5
Review:
An excellent, thought-provoking read
I thought this was an excellent book. A good number of other reviewers don't agree, but I found it thoughtful, gripping and very well written.
The plot has been well rehearsed elsewhere, but revolves around a 16-year-old narrator, Jessie Lamb, in a near future in which a virus has begun to cause the death of any woman who becomes pregnant. Jane Rogers uses this to reflect on a number of social issues including attitudes to women, animal research and so on. She also paints very sharp portraits of conflicting pressure-groups, both politically and religiously motivated, and of their utter moral certainty and the consequences of their conviction that they alone can see the truth.
What makes this really good, though, is Jessie's voice. I found her a completely convincing and rather engaging portrait of an adolescent, with that odd mixture of utter certainty that they can see the truth and insecurity in their search for ideas and identity, of both deep love for her parents and utter rage at them, and so on . No easy answers are presented, and there are few, if any, out-and-out good guys and bad guys, which I think is a real strength of the book. I found that the story built to a gripping climax despite there being no car chases or stand-offs with a killer. It's a beautifully written and structured tale
I would warmly recommend this to anyone who enjoys a readable, gripping and thought-provoking book.
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