Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive straight into my next review.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I went out for a few beers with my friend, Jon. We talked about numerous things, but the topic of books came up. Jon knows I’m a big reader and often asks about what I’m writing whenever we do meet up. Jon told me about a book he’d read recently, which had completely gripped him. That’s the kind of fix I’m always chasing – in a literary sense. Now, Jon’s a married man with two children who’s worked in banking for over a decade. He’s a real man in all the ways I’m not, but his busy life means he doesn’t get to read nearly as often as I do. But the books he’s been reading lately, he seems to have highly enjoyed. And when he told me about this book, I definitely thought it was worth my time. I placed a request from the library there and then.
The premise of this novel feels awfully familiar at first. It takes place in a similar but legally different world from the one we live in. The biggest governments of the world have been in cahoots in developing a virus in a Chinese lab. A virus which will be released – but only once a vaccine has also been developed – around the world. It will start off small but spread rapidly and take many millions of lives. The world leaders will enforce lockdowns in their respective countries in an attempt to control the virus, and that – along with the introduction of a vaccine at a later point – will make them seem like heroes. Britain’s Prime Minister is a thinly veiled Boris Johnson with the name Harris Jackson.
I know what you’re thinking. Right now, you’re about to say: “But, Daniel, this sounds a lot like Covid. We remember the lockdowns from 2020 and 2021. We don’t want to be reminded.” And I hear you. We’re closing in on six years from the first lockdowns in the UK. I remember the social distancing, queuing to get into Tesco’s, and the empty toilet paper aisles. And all of that is here in this book. But there is a major twist. The major twist comes in the form of our hero.
However, our hero in this story is – as far as I’m aware – the fictional Dr Haruto Ikeda. The Japanese scientist is working in a Chinese research facility when he discovers a dangerous coronavirus being developed along with the plan to release the virus. But Ikeda is not evil like the numerous world leaders who are behind the virus. Instead, he comes up with his own idea to thwart their plans.
Ikeda develops a virus of his own. One with similar symptoms to anyone who catches it (the cold and flu-like symptoms that leave you bedridden for a few days), but without the fatal outcome. Instead, every single person who catches his virus recovers from it with a major difference. Something in their DNA changes so that they’re a kinder person. Suddenly, the world has a higher population of people who are generally loving and caring. Imagine if politicians could catch a virus like that.
As you can probably imagine, reading this book did take me back to the real COVID. The truth is that I think the world did become a better place during that time. Of course, the loss of lives around the world was awful. But people were kinder. More people were working from home rather than clogging the roads every day on their commute. On top of that, we had the whole Clap for Carers every Thursday. I’d rather the carers had a pay rise than a clap, but the intent was there.
While I never thought we’d all be locked away in our homes for the rest of time, I was somebody who hoped the world wouldn’t entirely go back to normal. Sadly, the majority of the world didn’t get that memo. Instead, corporations have been insisting their employees come back to the office for no good reason when they could clearly work from home during the pandemic. Messages of hate are back, in person and on social media. And of course, politicians are still cruel.
While Carver’s novel takes the real pandemic we lived through and twists it into something more for the sake of fiction – which is intended for entertainment. While I read this book, I couldn’t help but find myself with a feeling of hope. The hope that we could end up with a world like the one in this book. But that’s the thing with hope. It’s hard to resist.
My Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
