Title: The Family Experiment
Author: John Marrs
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Science Fiction
First published: May 9th 2024
Publisher: Macmillan
Finished reading: April 15th 2024
Pages: 288

“Why leave it to chance or genetics when you can have the perfect baby you’ve always dreamed of? Here at Re:Born, we are now taking pre-launch orders for MetaBabies – children that exist entirely in the Metaverse.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Macmillan in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

REVIEW

I tend to enjoy John Marrs‘ writing, but there is no doubt that especially his speculative/dystopian thrillers stand out for me. While they are all technically stand-alones, they are set in the same near future dystopian world and I’ve enjoyed every single one so far… So it’s easy to understand why I’ve been looking forward to tackle The Family Experiment. The blurb of this newest addition is absolutely fascinating, and I loved the sound of the reality TV show mixed with the AI angle… And while it’s not my absolute favorite of the bunch, I still very much enjoyed my time reading it!

Like I said before, The Family Experiment is technically a stand-alone, but it is set in that same dystopian near future world as his previous speculative thrillers. There are also some clear references made to the majority of the books (The One, The Passengers, The Marriage Act), so I would personally still recommend reading them in order. That said, it’s mostly background information that you will be missing out on, and it won’t hinder you from understanding the plot itself. The Family Experiment focuses on a whole new concept, and it’s a fascinating one at that.

I always have a weak spot for a reality TV angle in my stories, and The Family Experiment show was such a clever way to introduce the whole MetaBaby concept. It also made it easier to introduce all the different characters in play, and it’s also easy to understand why so many people would want to watch it… I mean, it’s basically a trainwreck in the making, and people just can’t seem to resist tuning in to see just how bad things are going to go, or am I wrong? Anyhow, while I would personally never watch such a show, I somehow really enjoyed reading about it.

The Family Experiment uses a multiple POV structure, and there are a LOT of different characters in play. It took me a little while to properly keep them apart, although the fact that they mostly come in pairs does help a lot. There are also flashbacks to the past with another character, and I found those to be particularly fascinating (and heartbreaking). It was so interesting to see everything slowly come together, and I never guessed the full truth behind it all! The building up of suspense, plot twists and secrets is without doubt very well handled.

I do have to say that basically most of the characters are not likeable at all, and it made it harder to care about what happened to them. Some were worse than others, but it was still very hard or almost impossible to find a team to properly root for. I get that they all have secrets and that it’s part of the plot and twists, but still… I would have liked to have at least a character or two without a huge secret or unlikeable character trait.

Despite a few minor niggles and a slightly slower pace than expected, I can’t deny that I was still very much hooked by The Family Experiment and everything that happened along the way. It’s yet another successful speculative/dystopian thriller and I wouldn’t mind returning to the same world again in the future!

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