Nikki Erlick

Age of Miracles meets The Immortalists in this spirit-lifting, high-concept blockbuster debut set in a world where people can find out how much time they have left to live. Would you choose to find out the length of your life? One spring day, small wooden boxes arrive for every person, all over the world, from suburban doorsteps to desert tents. All the boxes feature the same inscription, "The measure of your life lies within," and vary in only two ways: the name of the recipient and the length of the single string inside. Instantly, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy, first to ascertain their origin and meaning, and then to confront the truth of the strings. Told through multiple perspectives, The Measure introduces an unforgettable cast of characters whose lives weave and interlock with one another upon the arrival of the strings: a doctor who cannot save himself, a couple who thought they didn't have to rush, best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, and a politician whose string becomes a powder keg in an increasingly turbulent world. As society divides itself, the truth has the power to unravel their long-held beliefs and relationships all while forging new alliances and philosophies about our time on this earth and our place in the community. Both heartbreaking and profoundly uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious meditation on life, family, and society that challenges us to consider the best way to live life to the fullest.

The Measure

Caroline

How would you live ur life if u knew how long u were going to live? 

I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around this book coz my mind is confused about whether i really liked or disliked this one. I did like parts of it and hated the remaining. At time I even wanted to give up on it. Yes! I have rated the book a full 4 stars ⭐️ only for that ending otherwise this review would be based on a 2.5 to 3 stars ⭐️ for me.

Every person around the world age 22 & above receives a small wooden box with their name inscribed on it and a string inside it. The string is supposed to be some indication of the measure of their life span sending the world into a state confusion, enjoy & sadness further dividing the world into long stringers & short stringers

The Measure though thought provoking has a fair share of its highs and lows. The book started off pretty well. The characters seemed delightful & interesting but then suddenly the book took a political turn & from there on the book just seemed to drag on. However, the ending got me emotional. Though, the chapters were small, the book felt very lengthy in nature. The book had way too many characters to focus on. 

According to me, the Author should have focused less on the political aspect & more on aspects like the exchange of letters between Ben and Ami, the friendship between Jack & Javier & few of the other characters. For most half of the book, the story only went on telling us that the short stringer had less time on this planet & how politicians were using it to win election. 

Though, the premises of the book was quite intriguing, the author just failed to deliver.

What would you do if everyone in the world received a string that told you the exact length of your life?

The Measure explores this over the course of a year, through the lives of several people. The choices they make-or don’t make. At its heart, The Measure is about what it means to be human, what a life means, and how we love one another. This will be a favorite book of mine for 2024.

Cheri McElroy

What would you do if everyone in the world received a string that told you the exact length of your life?

The Measure explores this over the course of a year, through the lives of several people. The choices they make-or don’t make. At its heart, The Measure is about what it means to be human, what a life means, and how we love one another. This will be a favorite book of mine for 2024.

Jason Lo

Maybe closer to a 3.5? The book is very heavy handed in kind of an annoying way, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to it being affective, especially in the latter half. And good on the author for not making it devolve into sci-fi pedantry at any point.

kayla 

the premise of this book was so intriguing, that's why it ended up being so disappointing. there was so much wasted potential here and it frustrated me immensely, the writing was slow and it just.. wasn't for me.

I thought this was going to be a lot like the short story “The Box,” but it’s so much better. By the end, you’ll be wondering if you’re living your most fulfilling life and what makes you the happiest. 

Kristen Savage

What started as a simple dystopian and contemporary ethical novel, ended up having such a strong message and reminder about accepting, living, respect, love, support, friendship, family and much more.

Definitely a great read for me and would recommend. 

Ani Velasquez

What started as a simple dystopian and contemporary ethical novel, ended up having such a strong message and reminder about accepting, living, respect, love, support, friendship, family and much more.

Definitely a great read for me and would recommend. 

I wasn’t expecting to like this book, let alone be left with a book that made me feel so deeply and ponder life in a way no book has before. The writing was poignant and thought provoking, touching on the lives of 8 people as they navigate a global wide, culture shock of a new norm (which felt oddly relatable following the pandemic and the shock waves that rippled systematically after it). Each character seems at first unattached, yet slowly intwines over the course of the book in beautiful and bittersweet  ways. A wonderful reminder of how fragile life is, with realistic commentary on the American political system  and how people react to adversity. 

Emily O'Masters

rushed ending; sad af; the weakest character had the most profound ending, strongest characters’ endings felt lackluster :,( i wanted to love this book. respect the courage to write something so complex though. 

Noemi Gonzalez

Elizabeth Wood

3.5 ⭐️ 

The premise of this book was fascinating. However, I felt the writing was lacking. I still fell in love with the characters and I did like how it ended. But it was missing the wow! 5 star quality of a book.

”The measure of your life lies within.”

Imagine you had a box whose contents would tell you almost exactly how long your life was. Imagine <i>everyone</i> did. Would you look? How would you react? Would you treat people with shorter lives differently? Would it change your outlook on life? This book explores those questions through the points of view of several people, who all come together, either directly or indirectly, through a support group for people with shorter lives ahead of them. We get to know the (large) cast, and essentially this book tells each of their stories through their own POV chapters and their experiences with this huge experience.

I loved all the things this book decided to explore. Personal things like love, loss, death, how to live your life knowing when the end is coming, and much larger things like how the world would react, societal divides, and political impacts. Getting to know the cast of characters as they navigate this weird world they’re in now is the point of the book, and if you go into this expecting some sort of action-y payoff you’re going to be disappointed. The characters are the point of this story, not the boxes themselves. I especially like how “interconnected” the characters feel, where someone referenced early on in the book comes to have their own POV chapters later on. It made the whole thing feel like “we’re in this together”, which I guess is also the point.

I see lots of low reviews about the inclusion of politics/agendas, the fact that it has sad moments, and that it’s a slow burn character piece. I guess, then, fair warning that all of this exists, but I think the point of the book is that it can all be overcome. There’s a lot of parallels here for living with a terminal disease, where you know your clock’s ticking, so what do you do? The boxes in the story don’t change when you die, it just lets you know ahead of time, if you choose to look. Sure there’s sad moments, but that’s life, and I appreciated how the book handled them.

5-star easy favorite this year. For the record, I don’t think I’d look in my box.

altlovesbooks

”The measure of your life lies within.”

Imagine you had a box whose contents would tell you almost exactly how long your life was. Imagine <i>everyone</i> did. Would you look? How would you react? Would you treat people with shorter lives differently? Would it change your outlook on life? This book explores those questions through the points of view of several people, who all come together, either directly or indirectly, through a support group for people with shorter lives ahead of them. We get to know the (large) cast, and essentially this book tells each of their stories through their own POV chapters and their experiences with this huge experience.

I loved all the things this book decided to explore. Personal things like love, loss, death, how to live your life knowing when the end is coming, and much larger things like how the world would react, societal divides, and political impacts. Getting to know the cast of characters as they navigate this weird world they’re in now is the point of the book, and if you go into this expecting some sort of action-y payoff you’re going to be disappointed. The characters are the point of this story, not the boxes themselves. I especially like how “interconnected” the characters feel, where someone referenced early on in the book comes to have their own POV chapters later on. It made the whole thing feel like “we’re in this together”, which I guess is also the point.

I see lots of low reviews about the inclusion of politics/agendas, the fact that it has sad moments, and that it’s a slow burn character piece. I guess, then, fair warning that all of this exists, but I think the point of the book is that it can all be overcome. There’s a lot of parallels here for living with a terminal disease, where you know your clock’s ticking, so what do you do? The boxes in the story don’t change when you die, it just lets you know ahead of time, if you choose to look. Sure there’s sad moments, but that’s life, and I appreciated how the book handled them.

5-star easy favorite this year. For the record, I don’t think I’d look in my box.

Lisa Lindquist 

HanaKyle Moranz

Really intense and excellently contemporary (especially compared to all of the historical fiction I read). Recommend!

Rita Santos

“It is not the length of life, but the depth.” - Emerson

Q&D: Interesting premise with startling realistic proposed responses that left me questioning our current society and pondering larger existential questions. Nothing ground breaking in terms of the meaning of life, but a great read nonetheless.

Abigail F

I’ll try to be nice because I’ve just finished it and the twisty conclusion was quite interesting.

However, the journey didn’t click with me. The concept was really interesting, but the execution was not that good imo. It lacked more depth, the conversation, inner dialogues were repetitive and superficial. I feel like the characters kept whining about what was going on with the strings. I guess that their reactions were very realistic, very human. But at the end, the discussions, the questioning the author tried to engage around  this hypothetical events were shadowed by all those whining characters. And I just didn’t buy the discussions, and i didn’t feel impacted by those as a reader.

One thing for sure, i didn’t expect this ending and that’s the part of the book I liked the most lol

Amira BEN

I’ll try to be nice because I’ve just finished it and the twisty conclusion was quite interesting.

However, the journey didn’t click with me. The concept was really interesting, but the execution was not that good imo. It lacked more depth, the conversation, inner dialogues were repetitive and superficial. I feel like the characters kept whining about what was going on with the strings. I guess that their reactions were very realistic, very human. But at the end, the discussions, the questioning the author tried to engage around  this hypothetical events were shadowed by all those whining characters. And I just didn’t buy the discussions, and i didn’t feel impacted by those as a reader.

One thing for sure, i didn’t expect this ending and that’s the part of the book I liked the most lol

Takes the age-old question “what if you knew when you’d die” on a deeply moving adventure through a range of interconnected perspectives. The bulk of the book grapples with the question (and other forms of it) while the final act lands one emotional and fitting conclusion after another. 

Conor Levey

Kristen Claiborn

You’ll have to excuse my language on this one, sometimes colorful metaphors are necessary. 
	What in the actual hell is this book? Is Nikki Erlick on drugs? I feel like there had to be drugs involved. Where in the world did the idea for this even come from? I’m telling you, there had to be hallucinogens involved. One day every human over the age of 22 wakes up to a neat little package that contains a string indicating exactly how long they’re going to be alive. It takes a while for the purpose of the strings to be figured out, but once that is determined, the entire world loses its collective mind. Those with long strings feel invincible and unbreakable, but the short-stringers are left bereft and lost. While trying to face the demons the strings bring on, short-stringers find solace in each other, creating support groups for connection. Enterprising long-stringers (we’re just going to call them assholes) find ways to shun and discriminate against the short-stringers (because would you expect anything less in the good ol’ USA?). In the end, there’s really no right or wrong way to handle the strings, but it’s clear there’s a right and a wrong way to react to people with short strings. 
	I came away with so many questions, which truly makes for a very unsatisfying book. The origin of the strings remains a mystery, only being mentioned in passing a few times. I feel like it would have been a better story to try to figure out where the damn strings came from. Instead, we follow a multitude of characters, which has quickly become one of my literary pet-peeves. Just give me a friggin storyline, stop with the back and forth from character perspectives and/or timelines. There are so many character viewpoints in this one, it becomes overwhelming. I didn’t enjoy much of this book, largely because there aren’t any answers offered. It was a soft close at the end, just kind of dropping us off without providing any closure.

Was not at all expecting for this book to be as profound, thought-provoking, and overall meaningful. Wow.

Lindsay

Alyssa O

Mel Smith 

Wow ! I haven't cried so much at a book in a long time. 😭 brilliantly written I loved how all the different characters lives crossed over each other and that ending 😳 I was so invested in the story I didn't see that coming at all. 



The Measure

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