The Family Experiment by John MarrsDark Future #5

 

Title: The Family Experiment

Series: Dark Future #5

Author: John Marrs

Publisher:  Harlequin Trade Publishing | Hanover Square Press

Release Date: May 9, 2024

From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.

Some families are virtually perfect…

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby…

Set in the same universe as John Marrs's bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi—a virtual baby.

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The Family Experiment by John Marrs is the latest book in the Dark Future series.

As its title suggests, this novel centers on a groundbreaking experiment: five couples and a single man become the “parents” of virtual babies. Over the next nine months, the virtual children grow from newborns to age eighteen. The parents access their “babies” through the metaverse and VR headsets. The prize? The winners can keep their virtual child or claim enough money to start a real family.

The couples and the young man all harbor secrets, which readers uncover gradually. Some are revealed from the start, while most emerge during the show, leading to eliminations one by one until the grand finale.

Unexpected, interesting, and thought-provoking, The Family Experiment held my attention the entire time. The one challenge was keeping track of so many characters at once. The audiobook and its narrators helped immensely.

Overall, it was a good addition to this sci-fi-dystopian world!

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by  Harlequin Trade Publishing | Hanover Square Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.