Review - The End Specialist by Drew Magary

The End Specialist by Drew Magary
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time Taken To Read - 6 days

Blurb From Goodreads

A gripping, compulsive thriller set in a future where the cure for ageing has been discovered… to devastating consequences

“You got me. I don’t want to die. I’m terrified of death. I fear there’s nothing beyond it and that this existence is the only one I’ll ever possess. That’s why I’m here.”�(An excerpt from the digital journal of John Farrell, cure age 29)

2019. Humanity has witnessed its greatest scientific breakthrough yet: the cure for ageing. Three injections and you’re immortal – not bulletproof or disease-proof but you’ll never have to fear death by old age.

For John Farrell, documenting the cataclysmic shifts to life after the cure becomes an obsession. Cure parties, cycle marriages, immortal livestock: the world is revelling in the miracles of eternal youth. But immortality has a sinister side, and when a pro-death terrorist explosion kills his newly-cured best friend, John soon realizes that even in a world without natural death, there is always something to fear.

Now, John must make a new choice: run and hide forever, or stay and fight those who try to make immortal life a living hell.


My Review

What a fantastic idea for a story. Imagine a cure that stops you aging, a cure that stops death and the possibilities from there on in. This is what happens in the year 2019 and John Farrell has acquired some on the black market. A few years later the cure is available to all, bringing out all the crazies and vigilantes who think it unnatural and bomb the doctors and buildings they feel responsible. The world starts to go a bit crazy, marriages are put on as cycles, babies are tattooed and that is just the start of the chaos that ensues.

I really liked parts of this book, the premise of this and the very idea of never growing old, future cures coming that attack illness and preserve humans. What of a world where no one dies? Supplies become limited, religious people are out in force, end specialists are on hand to take the numbers down a bit. I disliked other parts as I felt they dragged a little or didn't offer much to those parts of the story.

The format of the book is taken from John Farrell's digital journal (blog format), cataloging his experience from the run up to getting the cure to everything he sees and experiences afterwards. It is well thought out and runs shivers down your spine at the thought of how much of this could actually happen if we ever did create such a "cure" and raises the inner question(s) of would you and how far would you go to survive? The end was a wee big lacking for me although maybe it is so there can be another book? Or just how the author wanted to end this one, I would have preferred more. This was my first time reading this author and I would give them a bash again, 3/5 for me this time.

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