The Measure

1.5 stars. Edit to add: I listened to a bit of it as my gf listened because she wasn’t done with it and now I’m even more mad about how stupid this book is.

The premise is interesting but she didn’t really say much. If she hadn’t taken our current reality and just replaced any of the current struggles with equality and division with the strings, I could have been more on board. The Crash like ending was eye rolly and the lack of any meaningful arc left me unsatisfied.

Mysterious strings contain the length of your life. They appear in fancy boxes on your 22nd birthday. Why? Nobody knows. This book has a lot of good conversation potential especially as the people in the story divide into “short-stringers” and “long-stringers” and the potential for discrimination arises. Should a “short-stringer” be allowed to adopt? Work in certain jobs? However, the multiple viewpoints are dizzying to keep up with and there’s not much of a conclusion at the end.

I teared up multiple times, even though a book about sealed fates has few surprises. It’s not the fates themselves that are touching, it’s their interconnectedness. Suspend your disbelief and don’t think too hard about the immutability of the strings. The real story is what everyone does with the lives their strings represent.

Sorry! This one is not for me. A little too "slice of life" once you get past the initial strangeness of the premise. I prefer something weirder and more intense.

Very Hallmark movie-esque.

...but the book's based on one supernatural event and it does nothing with it. The event gets everyone thinking about death and fate, and the characters do have some growth, but then it doesn't say anything about them either. I felt it was just a missed opportunity.

Either dive deeper and don't rely on the supernatural as a story crutch, or use the supernatural to get us to think about how fate and death might be different than our current beliefs.

I suppose I got frustrated; sorry about the rant.

Great premise for a story as everyone at the age of 22 is suddenly able to find out when they will die. Of course the world loses its mind. The participants in this novel are in the US so they act even more irrationally and seek to marginalise those with shorter strings (the measure of a persons life).

Could have been great but ultimately loses its way an£ doesn’t explore the bigger story within. Why?

I enjoyed this quite a bit. Can't really say much without giving too much away, but read this if you want a little perspective shift on things, and a good dose of "huh? wonder what I would do..."

Enjoyed the book. Admittedly there were a few times I was starting to waver over the repetitive themes and conversations, however the characters are well written and the human response is seemingly accurate.

The book is science fiction based, but outside of the first chapter's explanation of the strings arrival and their meaning - the SciFi elements cease and the rest of the book is an interesting story of cultural response, and relationships.

This is an author to watch. Original premise, well executed, with characters/stories that tie together elegantly. There were moments when I worried the novel was on the cusp of revealing itself to simply be a heavy-handed parable, but Erlick did a good job creating compelling storylines so even when she was clearly advocating a specific view, it felt like it was in service to the story rather than the other way around.

Highly recommend!