One day a box appears on everyone’s doorstep all around the world. Inside the box there is a string , the length of which determines the length of your life. The longer the string the longer you have to live.
The book follows the lives of multiple characters all dealing with their string lengths in different ways, long-stringers, short-stringers and then there are those who haven’t even looked at their strings, happy to stay in ignorant bliss. I was expecting it to turn magical or fantastical like maybe aliens brought the boxes to earth to mess with humans but it didn’t, rather it is a story of how we would react to learning our fate as humans. It is incredibly realistic speculative fiction. Like the quote on the front says I believe it would be perfect for book clubs because there is so much to talk about it would spurn some fun discussions. Would you open your box? How would you react to learning one of your loved ones has a short string? Can you change your fate? This book really made me think that speculative fiction is one of my favourite genres, I just think the imaginations of the authors of these books are mind-blowing, literally. Nikki Erlick really just shook the world that we live in by introducing a box with a string it in.
— Rachel