Too much imagination can be a dangerous thing
It has been five years since writing fiction was banned by the government.
Fern Dostoy is a criminal. Officially, she has retrained in a new job outside of the arts but she still scrawls in a secret notepad in an effort to capture what her life has become: her work on a banned phone line, reading bedtime stories to sleep-starved children; Hunter, the young boy who calls her and has captured her heart; and the dreaded visits from government officials.
But as Fern begins to learn more about Hunter, doubts begin to surface. What are they both hiding?
And who can be trusted?
A year and a half ago, I read a Jodi Piccoult novel called Wish you Were Here. In that review, I talked about how a twist that you can't guess at is not a twist. And certainly for the first third, maybe even half, of this, there is no sign of the twist. It seems like a thought provoking, well thought out dystopian.
It's a fascinating thought - what would the world be like if there was no fiction? No fairy tales, no novels, no one allowed to write unless it's factual? While the novel was about that, I really enjoyed it. However, once the lead in to the twist started, I found I was losing interest; everything felt too random, too manic for manic's sake.
Some people are going to love this; they're going to think it's an amazing example of the genre it actually is, and they won't mind that it's not a dystopian as it appears to be. It's certainly very skillfully written. But I can't get over that weird feeling of being lied to.
Not for me, but it deserves to find an audience and I genuinely hope it does.
End of Story publishes on the 23rd of March, 2023. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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