Review: Pills and Starships

Pills and Starships by Lydia Millet
I downloaded it as an audiobook, knowing nothing about it except that it was on my library's audiobook page. I have a rule for books - I have to decide on page 100 if I want to keep reading or not. With this audiobook, I amended the rule, adding "or one drive" - I got about 40 minutes in this book because I had a conference call for part of the drive, but that was enough for me to know that I wasn't interested in continuing. The story is from the point of a girl writing in a journal to an unknown/imagined person in a spaceship. Her exposition-heavy writing tells us about a world run by corporations. In the book they're called "corps" which ended up being distracting in audiobook form. The government has subcontracted so much to the corporations that now they pretty much call the shots or have absorbed the administrative portions as well to where there is no more government oversight. The lifespan of humans has been increased, but it doesn't mean that everyone really wants to live long and people who are ready to die purchase a contract. The more you spend, the more choices you get in how you will die. her parents have decided it's time to go and have chosen a mid-level package so the whole family is in Hawaii to spend one week together before her parents are killed. Attempting to write all of this in the form of journal entries felt tedious and I really couldn't get into it.

It has 4-1/2 stars on Amazon with no 1 or 2 star ratings, so I might be in the minority. So, if you want to read other reviews, you might want to check out Amazon.com. (If you buy the book, Amazon will give me a nickel.)