This debut novel was thought-provoking, intriguing, & left me thinking about it for days. I was mind-blown by how thorough the author was. All aspects of society that'd be affected were discussed.

I was hooked from the very first page. It started off as a dystopian novel with magical realism elements. However, as the story developed, it became more of a social commentary/ character study.

One fine day, every person over 22 years old woke up to find a box with a string outside their doors. This string told how many years each person has left to live. This book studies how each person reacts to the string & how society changes as a result.

I found this book to be fascinating. The interesting and thought-provoking things that I liked were;

* The behaviour of long stringers towards short stringers
* How people made this just another way to divide themselves & discriminate
* How strings affected relationships (Break-ups, how new ones were formed, love, loss)
* Effortless inclusivity (Different races, LGBTQIA+, Disabilities, etc.)
* Did they die because of the short string or did they have a short string because they chose death?

Negatives;

* The thought that our actions have no impact on our lives was disheartening. An almighty figure deciding the date of death & us having no control of it was a concept that was difficult to accept

* Few illogical incidents like 12year olds riding slides in the children’s park

* No one was interested in where the strings came from. I know this wasn’t the focus of the story, but the story felt incomplete without it

To summarise, I think this was a brilliant study of human behaviour with just minor issues. I recommend this to anyone looking for a thought-provoking read.