The Postmortal by Drew Magary

The year is 2019 and a cure for aging has been discovered. After much political and cultural debate "The Cure" is made available to populations worldwide. Through fast-paced journal entries and blogger-style news story roundups compiled by an ever-watchful New York lawyer, John Farrell, readers experience a world where age-related diseases and deaths disappear altogether. But there are residual effects and THE POSTMORTAL forces us to rethink our idea of marriage if rendered indefinite and the allocation of precious resources in a world with exponential population growth. Ideological divisions manifest themselves in chilling ways in this new environment, introducing "pro death" anarchists who inflict ghastly punishments on those who dare to remain young. With the apocalypse on the horizon and regret creeping into everyday lives, living forever, as it turns out, isn't all it's cracked up to be.

This book is amazingly thought provoking and well written, everything about it makes you think. Would you take the cure? What happens to our family and all our loved ones? Does your idea of "love" change after being forced to consider an actual lifetime with the person you married? Would you ever consider giving a child the cure to make sure they stayed a child forever? All these questions are raised in this book and ultimately answered by John Farrell.

The book is written in the form of blog entries and newspaper stories and spans from 2019 to 2079 with John remaining at the cure age of 29 throughout. He has to face many disappointments and faces a lot of realities through his long life.

This book really made me question everything it raised. After the cure is discovered it meant everyone who used it wouldn't die of old age so the population exploded which meant people were struggling to survive. Money and jobs were scarce, as were places to live. Cycle marriages become the norm, where you only had to be married for a set period of time and at the end your marriage simply dissolved and you were free to marry another person. Pro-death anarchists terrorised and killed those who took the cure.

It really makes you think ..... would you take the cure if it were real? I loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone.


Book Depository: The Postmortal
Amazon UK: The Postmortal