Habits Kick Back

SPECULATIVE FICTION:  Life has progressed to one of conformity created by pharmaceuticals, everything accompanied by a supplement to curb or enhance behaviors. Visit a local campus and watch the students learn via simulations versus real life experience. Daily life is a regimented grid of supplements and super humans running on the fuel of the future: capsules of many colors. Luna experiences an odd sensation during a simulation and is driven to feel again. Thus begins an experiment in kicking the supplements and learning to live on her own. 

Pharmaceutical companies are already proving they have the power to dictate how we live. Whether it is a glut of vitamins to live naturally or a library of prescriptions, humanity today has started to revolve around pill popping - thus the idea that the future could become so regulated by “supplements” is truly frightening. This premise is a solid foundation for a novel and highly intriguing; unfortunately the execution of the idea is slightly lost in translation. The story is muddled by unnecessary information. One dimensional representation of the characters, a device utilized to show the effect of being drugged, falls flat due to not enough difference being shown when Luna doesn’t take the capsules. Also a revisit to editing would benefit the book to correct numerous errors. The highlight of the book is Luna’s grandmother, an easily relatable character due to her age.  Grandma is a child of the nineteen eighties, playing a futuristic hippy. Rock on. 

Penelope Anne Bartotto