Saturday, August 26, 2017

Aaru by David Meredith book thoughts


Title: Aaru
Series: Yes (The Aaru Cycyle Book 1)
Author: David Meredith
Published Date: July 9th, 2017
Publisher: Amazon
Source: Author
# of Pages: 305
Format: Ebook
Genre: YA/NA/Sci-Fi
Days to Read: 4
Rating: 3.75/5 stars
Would I recommend it?: Yes
Would I read more books by this Author?: Yes
My Social Media: Goodreads/My Booktube Channel/Twitter/Instagram

Goodreads Synopsis

"…Death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future…"
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Rose is dying. Her body is wasted and skeletal. She is too sick and weak to move. Every day is an agony and her only hope is that death will find her swiftly before the pain grows too great to bear.

She is sixteen years old.

Rose has made peace with her fate, but her younger sister, Koren, certainly has not. Though all hope appears lost Koren convinces Rose to make one final attempt at saving her life after a mysterious man in a white lab coat approaches their family about an unorthodox and experimental procedure. A copy of Rose’s radiant mind is uploaded to a massive super computer called Aaru – a virtual paradise where the great and the righteous might live forever in an arcadian world free from pain, illness, and death. Elysian Industries is set to begin offering the service to those who can afford it and hires Koren to be their spokes-model.

Within a matter of weeks, the sisters’ faces are nationally ubiquitous, but they soon discover that neither celebrity nor immortality is as utopian as they think. Not everyone is pleased with the idea of life everlasting for sale.
What unfolds is a whirlwind of controversy, sabotage, obsession, and danger. Rose and Koren must struggle to find meaning in their chaotic new lives and at the same time hold true to each other as Aaru challenges all they ever knew about life, love, and death and everything they thought they really believed.

My Thoughts

I received this copy from David Meredith in exchange for my honest review.

This book really did tug at my heart strings. It starts off with Rose dying in the hospital thanks to Leukemia. While I have never had Leukemia so I understand it's different, having been born with vacterl association, among other things, living disabled and with chronic pain, and often being in the hospital for one surgery or another, I was able to relate to Rose in ways. In how she felt and the things she thought, I've had those same feelings and thoughts. And I don't think i've ever seen them written so plainly in a book before.

Even though Rose's body dies, they scan her brain beforehand so she can live on in Aaru, still able to communicate with others like her sister Koren and their parents. Her essence living on in basically a huge computer. What would you do if you could communicate with a loved one after death, their essence living on, able to talk to you through data in a computer, through a computer screen you could see each other? Sound too much like blasphemy? Playing God? Would you think it's a wonderful future, essentially conquering death once and for all? What about their soul? Is it truly them?

Since Rose is the first to really experience it, Koren is asked to be a spokesperson for Aaru, to help spread the word, and at just 13 years old becomes a celebrity. Both Rose and Koren have POV's. Not everyone is happy with Aaru but Koren does get many fans. The life of a young celebrity isn't exactly easy though. Even among her fans not everyone is...well good.

This tackles questions of life and death, of what it means to be alive, of being a celebrity and young.

I had a couple issues with it but over all did enjoy it. My issues having to do with Koren's mother slapping her and that never being mentioned as not ok, despite the situation. Even though I could understand her mother's feelings it isn't ok to slap your 13 year old child. One case of the r-word and a thing with Jonas (Koren's celebrity crush that she does end up meeting) that I don't want to spoil but left a bad taste in my mouth. Though about that last thing I did like that Koren does act like the young teenager that she is. I have nothing against the way she acted and thought, I could understand that having once been a teenager myself. I just don't want to spoil it..

I loved the characters and the writing had me flying across the pages while I was reading it, desperate to know what happened next. I cried and felt many emotions while reading. I loved the conversations about life, death, being sick, the way people treat you and the things they say when your chronically ill that I related so much too, and the role religion played. There were people of different religions and ethnicities in Aaru and that played a part in how they felt about it.

I am glad to have read this and am looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

2 comments:

  1. Ooh this sounds interesting! I do like books that talk about like the "life and death and playing god" situations because I find them super morally questioning and it's interesting! I'm glad you liked it, even if there were some downsides. That cover is also kind of creepy?!? I'm intrigued. 😜

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    Replies
    1. If you check it out I hope you like it. It definitely had me thinking and it was interesting. :)

      Thank you :)

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