Changes

{{infobox1infobox

|reviewer=Alex Mitchell|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Catcher in The Rye meets Neuromancer in this well-realised, thoroughly depressing tale of teen angst in a world where supermen and robots control everything. |rating=4|buy=Yes|borrow=Maybe

|publisher=Merritt GravesAmazon

WeOur protagonist and narrator is Dorian, a high-school student who turns to housebreaking with his best friend Ethan in order to pay for his Revisions. Part of me really does want to sympathise with Dorian, and he'll soon have s not without sympathetic qualities, but at the same time his extreme self-centeredness, tendency to blame all his problems on society, obsessive stalking of Lena, and his looking down on others as being stupid make him quite hard to like at times. Ethan isn’t much better, being a cowardly, depressed drug addict who also only thinks about himself. Dorian’s brother Jaden, an undiagnosed psychopath, is a source of constant conflict with Dorian, constantly poking and prodding and making their parents suspicious. It’s certainly brave of Graves to try to write a review story with normally unlikeable characters, but Dorian and Ethan may be on their way to redeeming themselves by the end of this the book.

You The setting of the novel is actually quite interesting, and it does take into consideration how the technology described would impact the world at large. Gene editing and robotics are relatively commonplace, forming the basis of Revision. Revision improves the subject’s physiology, thereby making them superhumanly strong, smart and attractive, thereby rendering ordinary people obsolete. However, this treatment is very expensive, and only the very rich can read more about Merritt Graves [[:Category:Merritt Graves|here]]afford it. Those whose jobs have been taken by machines and the Revised are on a system of basic income, and inflation has become so bad that the dollar has had to be replaced by the Benjamin Franklin (or Benjie) in the same way that the Mark was replaced by the Reichsmark in order to combat hyperinflation in 1920s Germany. In many ways, the realism of the world only adds to the depression factor, since all of this may end up coming true one day.