By Guillermo Valentin
SC Contributing Writer
After rummaging through the masses of ESU students asking what they thought of the summer reading, “The Postmortal” by Drew Magary, I have come to realize that most didn’t know there was even a book to be read.
Being the English Major I am, I dived right into the book, discovering its potential and its thought provoking topics. These topics included immortality, marriage, friendship, sex, and death, as well many other emotionally edgy subjects. The array of emotions this book offers to you is immense yet easy enough for students and faculty of all levels to understand.
The beginning of the novel grabs your attention and creates a relatable scenario you could imagine yourself in. It’s comfortable, catchy, and most of all intriguing.
Imagine a place where people could choose to stop aging and the world as we knew it suddenly became as crowded as a mall on Black Friday. This is the world protagonist John Farrell finds himself living in.
This pre-apocalyptic place Magary creates holds a population that well exceeds the amount of resources the world can produce, and herein lays only the surface of the many difficulties.
As the story develops, John encounters nuclear explosions, government conspiracies, eerie gangs, and paid assisted suicides that put me on the edge of my chair.
I understand the many complaints of this book going slow at times, however, if you as a reader allow yourself to plunge into the setting John lives in, every little bit of information is key to what pulled me deeper into the protagonist’s life.
Simply put, the novel is a fun and interesting read. The thoughts that this novel conjures are nothing but healthy out-of-the-box thinking that every college student should experience.
If you enjoyed series such as “Divergent,” “Hunger Games,” or “Maze Runner,” you would thoroughly enjoy the atmosphere Drew Magary provides for you in “The Postmortal.”
Email Guillermo at:
gvalentin1@live.esu.edu
