16-year-old Grace awakes one morning to find the sky leaden, the sun huge ball of ash, the clouds like threatening rubble, and reports of unexplained accidents occurring on roads and rail. These are the hallmarks of an apocalyptic movie, but it quickly becomes apparent that everything, to the rest of her family, seems normal; Grace is one of only a handful of people in the country who are seeing the world in shades of grey.
Soon, however, the whole of society is in the grip of the Monochrome Effect, or 'greyout', which eliminates the ability of humans and animals to see colour. The greyout moves from person to person, but it isn't a transmissible disease: the effect on the optic nerve can be traced from microplastics in the ocean, the result of unchecked pollution, now in all water systems.
When Grace starts to experience intermittent 'colour episodes', she is asked to join a government-run study with other teens who have seen flashes of colour since the Monochrome Effect began. She is told that she will be helping find a cure; be part of something that could save the world. But the reality is much more sinister, complex and dangerous than she could ever have imagined - colour vision is now currency, and to those in power, worth the ultimate price...
This is a really interesting concept! Personally, I felt the execution was a little bit rushed, but there's a lot to enjoy here and a lot that will stay with you afterwards.
The idea itself is really clever and not one I've seen anywhere before. I hadn't thought about how losing colour vision would affect other things like taste, but it really made me think. I have caught myself looking at coloured things a bit more than I used to, which I'm not at all sorry about! If that's the lingering effect this book has, it'll be a great one.
However, I did feel like the story moved very quickly. That's not always a bad thing, but being in one person's POV means we didn't know a lot of what was going on elsewhere. I would have loved to know how the world was dealing, or even a few more details on the apparent collapse of society that was going on outside the estate walls. Plus, of course, the romance went from 'what a horrible boy' to 'love of my life' in about three days, which always strikes me as weird.
Overall I did enjoy this. The ending leaves an opening for more books and I would definitely want to know what happens next. Worth the read.
Monochrome publishes on the 6th of October, 2022. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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