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Suicide Club: If you could live forever . . . would you?

Suicide Club: If you could live forever . . . would you?

by RachelHeng (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2018

    $6.85
Synopsis

They leave us no choice.

Always look both ways before you cross the road. Get a 9 to 5 job . Exercise for 30 minutes every day. Do not eat bread. Do not eat sugar. Do yoga. Do meditate. Never raise your voice. Always smile, even if you feel like dying.

What are you doing to help yourself?
What are you doing to show that you're worth the resources?

Some time in the near future, thanks to medical technology HealthTechTM, immortality is now within humanity's grasp. But faced with declining economic productivity, falling birth rates and a severely aging population, the Ministry has become the all-powerful arbiter of how healthcare resources are allocated.

Resources accrue to 'lifers', those predisposed for a life expected to be lived healthily well beyond a hundred years old. Some factors that determine lifer status are genetically incidental - but there are other, more intangible factors that are within individuals' control: the degree to which they are 'life-loving' and self-caring. Non-lifers are known as 'sub-100s': individuals with no potential for longevity and deemed a waste of HealthTechTM resources.

The Suicide Club hasn't always been an activist group. Initially, it was a group of disillusioned lifers, gathering to indulge in forbidden, hedonistic activities: performances of live music, traditional meals of the most artery-clogging kind, irresponsible orgies . . . You name it. Now branded terrorists, anyone found guilty of wanting the right to die as they choose will find themselves fast-tracked to the Third Wave and condemned to immortality. . .

$6.85

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 384
 Publisher: Sceptre
Published: 10 Jul 2018
ISBN 10: 1473672910
ISBN 13: 9781473672918

Media Reviews
Life-affirming . . . Be careful what you wish for has never been so chilling, or so gripping -- Erin Kelly, author of HE SAID/SHE SAID
We raced through this addictive take on the modern obsession with youth and perfection * Fabulous Magazine, Sun *
Original and subversive * Independent *
An intriguing idea in which Heng takes a much-needed swipe at health fascism and our obsession with youth, beauty and superfoods * Mail on Sunday *
A complicated and promising debut that spoofs the current health culture craze even as it anticipates its appalling culmination. * Kirkus *
Rachel Heng's highly readable debut novel is thought-provoking, moving, worryingly convincing - and ultimately hopeful * Irish Times *
A provocative new author. A fascinating debut novel. Read it! -- Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach trilogy
Clever, bold and makes you think about the value of life * Good Housekeeping *
Suicide Club bends genre with grace and artistry, delivering us to the outermost reaches of what's familiar and affirming what dares to still exist there: family, friendship, and forgiveness. With superb writing, Rachel Heng has crafted a world inside of a world gone mad, one where love faces its most difficult test. This is an exciting, bold, inventive novel. -- Kristen Iskandrian, author of MOTHEREST
The future is here. Let's welcome one of its stars. Talented and ferociously intelligent, Heng has produced a glittering debut -- Joanna Briscoe, author of YOU
Suicide Club is a bold and brilliant book -- Francesca Jakobi, author of BITTER
Heng expertly threads a ribbon of dread through her glittering vistas and gleaming characters . . . A complicated and promising debut * Kirkus *
Glitters, darkly . . . a subversive celebration of life. -- Nick Clark Windo
I always love novels that can combine powerful writing with massive levels of compassion and heart, and SUICIDE CLUB is one such book. Its genre-straddling dark heart can't fail to impress. -- James Smythe
Fans of modern speculative fiction and readers who love stories that warn us to be careful what we wish for will be enthralled by Heng's highly imaginative debut * Library Journal *
If the styling is satirical . . . Heng isn't playing for laughs . . . the fascinating and compelling scenario on show here ultimately forces you to question nothing less than the meaning of life * Metro *
A provocative and engrossing novel, SUICIDE CLUB has plenty to say about our obsession with health fads * Stylist *
What is particularly chilling about SUICIDE CLUB is that the dystopian world it's set in - one obsessed with looks and youth - is not an entirely implausible vision of the future . . . Through crisscrossing stories about love and loss, suffused in some wonderful and heartbreaking prose, she takes the reader on a journey to truly understand the question: who wants to live forever? * The Skinny *
A feat of blazing imagination, Rachel Heng's Suicide Club is a thought-provoking look at a near-future society that feels a quarter-turn away from ours. Heng's storytelling gleams, but this novel doesn't shy away from darkness - thank goodness. -- Kelly Luce, author of PULL ME UNDER
a refreshingly original debut. * Bookriot *
Suicide Club is a rarity in the summer books season: a novel that will make you think about life and how you live it. * Medium *
Suicide Club shows us the way to live a life that might be something to be ultimately worth dying for. * Medium *
Part critique of the American cult of wellness, part glittering future with a nightmare undercurrent, Suicide Club is nothing if not deeply imaginative and timely -- Kaulie, The Millions
Gripping * Red Magazine *
Subversive and satirical, Heng has channelled all of our Insta-obsessions and turned them into a mind-blowing mystery. * Emerald Street *
Heng's vision of the future is undoubtedly big, bold and well-researched. Her expansive world-building marks her as a name to watch. * The Business Times Singapore *
Catch[es] the zeitgeist of our troubling times . . . Suicide Club is a very good story, and Heng writes like a dream about of the triumph of love and the benefit of not playing by the rules. In their search for meaning, her characters reject conformity for individuality and freedom. Perhaps our world is not so bad. -- Heidi Kingstone * Standpoint Magazine *
Author Bio

Rachel Heng is a Singaporean writer who graduated from Columbia University with a BA in Comparative Literature & Society. After working in the finance sector in London for several years, Rachel moved to Austin, TX, to pursue an MFA in Fiction and Screenwriting at the highly selective Michener Center for Writers, where she is currently a James A. Michener Fellow.

Rachel's short stories have been widely published in literary journals such as The Offing, Prairie Schooner, the minnesota review and elsewhere. Her fiction has won Prairie Schooner's Jane Geske Award, was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been recommended by the Huffington Post.

Suicide Club is Rachel's first novel.