“A world that had been willing to reject the efficacy of vaccines suddenly found itself on the verge of being forced to live without them, and it was not prepared.”
Morris’ disease – named after the first known patient, Lisa Morris – has swept across the world, killing millions and leaving the survivors searching for answers. Though most agree that the disease was too well-engineered to be anything other than a human creation, no group ever took credit for it, and most of the public blame falls on anti-vaxxers for weakening the herd immunity and allowing the pandemic to take hold and spread. For Dr. Isabella Gauley, the disease has had both personal and professional ramifications, as Lisa was her niece and Izzy is one of the few remaining pediatricians, whose offices are protested at like today’s abortion clinics. When shocking new ramifications of the disease are discovered, Izzy makes choices that both connect and separate her from her surviving sisters, Angela and Brooke.
“A single person could transform everything. She had started off doing everything she did for Lisa’s sake, and now, with Lisa gone, she was still doing it all for the little girl who had loved her, and trusted her, and died under her care.”
For me, this is a story about three sisters – Izzy, Angela, and Brooke – bound together by the death of their niece and daughter, Lisa. Izzy focuses on being a doctor and trying to convince parents to vaccinate their (remaining) kids. Brooke mourns her daughter in her own quiet way. Angela, on the other hand, is drawn to vaccination activism, inciting the groups protesting outside Izzy’s office and always eager to provide another soundbite for the media. While they’re each mourning Lisa, they do it in their own ways, often setting them at odds with each other.
“We have quarantine. Quarantine says that the government can impede your ordinary movement if you present a danger to others. Vaccination should be treated as something on the same level. You get vaccinated, not because you want to protect yourself, but because you want to be a part of society, and being a part of society means protecting everyone around you.”
The novella itself is quite addictive, and I devoured it in one sitting. Ms. Grant is excellent at creating a sense of unease that permeates the book, even when the main characters are – should be – happy and hopeful, the sort of readerly equivalent of the feeling that there’s something hiding in the dark at the edges of your vision. Her characters, too, leap off the page, including the main character, Dr. Isabella Gauley, who could’ve easily fallen into the typical mad scientist stereotype but instead has so much more depth. I thought Ms. Grant did a great job also of giving enough medical background to make it chillingly realistic but not so much as to bog down the story. The thought of some sort of superbug wiping out millions of people is, unfortunately, too realistic. Unfortunately, it also turned into a bit of a screed about mandatory vaccination and bodily autonomy, and the whole anti-vax movement. While I felt this was warranted, especially as we’re coming at it from the point of someone who’s failed to save so many children, it was a bit too much, and also the reason why I only rated this four stars instead of five.
“I’m really hoping that your desire to do good is going to outweigh your desire to follow the rules. So what do you say? Will the two of you run away from home with me, so that we can try to save the world?”
There’s a nice twist at the end of the novella that definitely put a new spin on the actions of certain characters throughout the book. Who are the monsters? Is it the uncaring disease itself, the anti-vax crowd that lessened the herd immunity, the radical groups that have linked mandatory vaccinations with anti-abortion rhetoric, the parents who love their children enough to sacrifice them in order to save them? And in trying to fight these monsters, how far do we go before we become monsters ourselves?
While I very much hope that Ms. Grant chooses to treat this as the beginning of a series, I also feel that it’s pretty well wrapped up in and of itself. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a quick and engrossing sci-fi horror read!
I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.