3 out of 4 stars
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Final Notice by Van Fleisher follows the interconnected stories of several different people. What makes them all connected? The VT2. It’s a new smart watch that is in clinical trials. This watch measures the vital signs of the wearer and tracks their activity, much like an Apple watch. So, what makes this watch so special? It can notify the wearer of impending natural death within a 30-day window. While this feature is intended to help the person get their affairs in order, some unintended consequences also occur.
At the same time that this watch comes out, the National Rifle Association (NRA) announces a senior discount and begins pushing for senior citizens to become armed. The reasoning behind this push is that senior citizens are being targeted in many crimes. The NRA states that guns will keep them safe. What will happen when these same citizens receive their Final Notices and have nothing to lose? What if the senior citizens want revenge? Is anyone safe?
This book talks about a lot of issues that we are facing in society today. It talks about the issues of school shootings and gun control. It also brings up discrimination against different groups of people such as the elderly and immigrants. I liked the way that the author pointed out current political problems from multiple perspectives, not just one. The author did a great job seeing things from all sides. However, there were a few points in the book where the debates detracted from the overall story. I’m all for debate, but some parts dragged on and made it difficult for me to stay engaged.
Another aspect of the book that I enjoyed was the buildup to the conflict and resolution of the book. The author did a great job not revealing too much too soon while still throwing in enough suspense to keep the reader engaged. This was complemented by the switch up between perspectives throughout the novel. Usually it is hard to follow different storylines, but it was easy to follow in this book. The way the stories went together made me want to continue to read. Something would happen in one part, and I’d want to read the next chapter to see how that affected the other characters’ stories. The way all of it went together was a huge accomplishment!
Unfortunately, there were also a couple downfalls to this book. My biggest complaint is that the characters’ personalities did not shine through in the dialogue. All of the people spoke with the same style. This got to be confusing because there were often long sections of dialogue where it didn’t say who was speaking. The errors throughout the book were also significant enough to notice. They weren’t really major errors, but they were still distracting.
In light of all of these different aspects of the book, I give it 3 out of 4 stars. I liked the story as a whole, and I thought that it provided a great message about some of the problems in our society. The overall flow and style were good, and I really enjoyed the book. However, the problems that I mentioned made it so I couldn’t give this book a perfect score. If they were fixed, I would definitely consider giving it a higher score.
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Final Notice
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