Book title:
Division
Author: Karen A.
WyleAuthor web site: http://www.KarenAWyle.net
Genre: near-future science fiction (though the book is also intended for general audiences)
ISBN: The paperback, due out on March 20, 2014, will have the ISBN 978-1493775989.
ASIN: For the e-book, B00G82BBQQ.
Reviewer by Samantha Saboviec, originall for her blog Magic and Mayhem
Rating:
4.5 of 5 stars.Note: The reviewer received a
Division is one of the best books I read
in 2013, a year in which I read Parasite and We
Need to Talk About Kevin. (And the Divergent trilogy,
but I didn’t actually like those books, so no competition there.) I liked it so
much that I asked author Karen A. Wyle to write a
guest post for the
blog, which she did last Friday.
I read books to
escape and be entertained, like everyone else. But more, I read books to be
challenged intellectually, and Division does just
that.
This is a story
about a pair of conjoined twins. One twin wants to undergo an operation to
separate them into two bodies, while the other wants to stay joined. This is set
in the near future, where the twins must present their arguments in court
because the procedure requires the use of clones and cloning is restricted. The
book follows a variety of characters as they cope with the emotional atmosphere
up to and after the decision
I get swept away
by books like these that explore what it’s like living in the skin of an
unusual, unexpected person. Division puts us into the experiences of a
twin who want to be free, showing us what life is like chained to another
person. It shows us the struggle the other twin undergoes when he’s–in his
mind–rejected by someone closer than a lover could ever be. It even examines how
their struggle affects their mother, who’s loved them unconditionally from birth
and must watch their relationship fall apart. It follows a girlfriend who
believed she would, someday soon, marry two people in one
body.
A variety of
moral questions are opened without direct treatment, which was skillful and
impressive. Should the twins be allowed to leave their body for clones? Should a
court have the responsibility to decide the future of their lives? Can there
ever be a “right” answer when both of them want something mutually
exclusive? Yet the morality was never heavy-handed, but was instead a backdrop
for the interesting and subtle character
interactions.
This book is one
of the beautiful pieces of self-published literature that inspires me. The
author, Karen
A. Wyle, has published several other books that I’m eager to
check out. Not to get on my soapbox again, but meticulous attention to
detail–plot, character, premise, grammar–is what makes people want to read
books. You don’t have to be traditionally published, though you may have to work
your bum off twice as hard to get noticed. I heartily recommend this
book.
Purchase links:
Amazon for Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Division-Karen-Wyle-ebook/dp/B00G82BBQQ -- or the multi-country link, http://smarturl.it/Division
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/362640
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