Artful Readers Club - January

Hello everyone - I'm here with a review of The End Specialist by Drew Magary, my chosen book for January and the artwork that it inspired.  For a full description of the whys and wherefores of the Artful Readers Club please pop over here.

I'll try and keep my review shorter than my usual rambles... 

The End Specialist by Drew Magary

Imagine the cure for ageing being discovered. You can still get ill. You can still die through murder or natural disease or stupidity but once you've taken the cure you wont age. So potentially you could live forever. Or a few hundred years at least. Would you take the cure? Could you watch your friends and family who don't take it, wither away and die? Or on the flipside could you promise to have and to hold... for all eternity. What about political repercussions, religious, environmental... could our world sustain an ever growing population?

The story is told retrospectively through the journal of the central character and also various blog/news headlines. I found this side of the novel didn't work for me. I just can't believe someone would record the events in as much detail as he did... down to pauses, other peoples conversations etc, etc. I didn't buy into that side of it. However if you switch that part off, just ignore it, it's such a good book. When I initially started reading I didn't think I'd like it - the style of writing didn't feel like it was hooking me in. However I found myself talking about the issues raised with my partner.Every time something else happened  in the book, both positive and negative I would talk to him about it. We all think about immortality - I'm sure of it, but there were so many issues raised in this novel that hadn't even occurred to me. All of a sudden I was at the end of the novel and I had been completely drawn in. I didn't like the end - it wasn't a satisfying conclusion for me and I still had questions... however I do recommend the book. It will have you questioning a lot of things. Even now,  a couple of weeks after finishing I still find myself mulling it over.

Who wants to live forever? After reading The End Specialist... Not me. But another half century or so would be nice...

Just on a side note - my copy was the e-book and that comes with extra's at the end that the 'real' book doesn't. Mine was bought last January in the Kindle sales for a bargain 99p.

I decided to do a journal page after reading this book. Honestly, I could have written pages and pages and pages of thoughts. I think a lot about life and death and immortality and time travel (that's not in the book but I think about it a lot) and what if's...  On a daily basis actually. This book had me looking at things in a different light if I'm honest. Eventually I settled on a couple of quotes that made me smile instead.

The background has been in my journal for ages and ages. Mainly made up of left over paint and mist, stencils wiped off etc. I built it up with Lyra Aquacolour crayons, tissue and  Posca pen. 

My February book will be:

See you then, if not before (am determined to get a Rocking Friday post done this week!) Thanks for stopping by :)