Ahoy there me mateys! I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .

This novel sounded awesome. It is a sci-fi about a society with a horrible disease called Camden-Young's. This part of the blurb made me want to read it, "the stealth envirus has laid waste to 74% of Caucasians between puberty and their early thirties while the other 26% are mysteriously immune. From flu-like attacks to excruciating fevers, hair loss, blindness, insanity and death, there is no cure."

I thought this novel would float me boat. I tried to get through it multiple times but I just could not finish it and had to abandon ship at 25%. Why ye ask? Well for a myriad of reasons (in no particular order):

- The main character - I didn't hate David Stonetree but he was kinda bland. The only thing that seemed to perk him up was a car.

- His girlfriend - The person in David's life who has the disease is his girlfriend, Sharon. Ye see her in the beginning when she has just found out and then she disappears at the 5% mark. She reappears in one phone call 20% in and another brief mention at 24%. I wanted to read about the impact of the disease on their relationship.

- The 1967 Mustang - So instead of worrying about his girlfriend and her health, David wants to by a car. A car that costs as the book says "two-thirds of his annual salary . . . [and] twice what the typical family of four was supposed to survive on each year." He is obsessed with it. It is talked about a lot and in annoying detail from 20% to 24% of the book. Come on David. Get yer priorities straight!

- The corporate culture - David works for a company that produces the drug to help the symptoms of the people suffering from the disease. He gets a raise to work for the cut-throat exec that runs the company, Lane. I suppose that the author was trying to make the company culture feel realistic. What it seemed to be was just boring.

- David's morals - David has always disliked Lane and yet jumps at the chance to work for her and make more money. To . . . buy the car. When Sharon expressed surprise at this , David is "troubled by the condescending tone she used." He dismisses her entire viewpoint "as nothing more than depression over her illness, her struggles at work and a continuing difficulty with a decided jealous disposition . . . if she had only given him a little room they might by now be living together, if not engaged." Then he fantasizes more about the car. UGH.

- I read a couple more pages about a friend of David's named McReynolds who is "charmingly arrogant" and a ladies' man whose wife left him (shocker!). When David starts lamenting that he can't be more like McReynolds, I couldn't take the blatant misogyny anymore.

With so many books on the horizon, I just gave up. I wanted a book that got into the ramifications of a serious disease and its impact on both interpersonal relationships and society as a whole. This wasn't it. I want me reading to make time seem to disappear, not to accentuate every second passing. I am sad, but I couldn't fight the tide.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Riverdale Avenue Books! I may not have liked it but I am grateful for the chance to review this book.