I did want to give the book 3 out of 5 stars, just for the topic that it’s centred around, but I just couldn’t manage to warm up to like it more. There’s something very “pop-culture-like” about its style and writing, whereas nowhere as bad as 50 Shades of Grey, it somehow falls into a similar drawer for me. Yes, there is an interesting side to it, the story representing the trends of our current societies and the direction such further development might lead us towards, but it just doesn’t offer enough from a writer’s point of view. Here it also makes me wonder whether the topic is so groundbreaking for such a hype to arise around the book.

Whereas at the beginning I was glad about the style that flowed with ease, it finally got repetitive and monotone towards the end of the story. It seems like the author is still finding herself, stylistically jumping between paragraphs with extraordinarily detailed descriptions, over to extremely basic dialogues. Upon finishing the book and reading up that “Suicide Club” is Rachel’s debut novel, it all made more sense. Somehow the characters are lacking depth and you feel like you’re only scratching the surface, only getting to know the superficial sides of each of them. Every now and then you’ll come across borderline cliché and annoying phrases that will literally make you cringe like, “He wasn’t precious, like Lea (…)” or “But as Lea stared into Todd’s perfect golden eyes (…)”. It just didn’t feel like a well-rounded and completed product to me.

Nevertheless, to end on a positive note, it does open up interesting questions concerning the future development of medicine, our striving towards a never-ending life and even touching on topics of how personal data might be shared in the future, going along with a very probable complete loss of privacy. I picked up the story for a book club and I think for such a purpose, it does offer room for varied discussions.

★★☆☆☆ (2/5)