The One by John Marrs

Author : John Marrs

Title : The One

Punished : 2017
Publisher : Del Rey
Genre : Since Fiction / Psychological Thriller
Pages : 416

     How far would you go to find The One? One simple mouth swab is all it takes. A quick DNA test to find your perfect partner - the one you're genetically made for. A decade after scientists discover everyone has a gene they share with just one other person, millions have taken the test, desperate to find true love. Now, five more people meet their Match. But even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking - and deadlier - than others...

   What would you do if to find your one try soul mate all you had to do was hand over a sample of your DNA. That's the bases for The One, I find it to be a little of a strange thing to comprehend. While our genes are responsible for a lot of who we are, surely who we fall in love with has more to do with how we are brought up. But this once again brings up the whole question of free will and how much of our lives are truly in control of. The first thing I would say show easy our heroes and heroines go over to the idea. The author has set up his story to start a few years after this tech has been around and I suppose given the prevalence of apps like Tinder maybe we are happy to let go a little more than we would have in the past. 

     The book is split between multiple viewpoints as several groups of couples go through the experience of these pairings. I found it easy enough to keep up with each of these threads as each chapter starts with the name of who you have swapped to. Now with each group, I got to witness different side effects of these actions.  Now some appealed more to me than others but I think that it is more down to me that the author and I suspect that you will find the same things. Each of these individual charters has something to offer the reader the tackle deeper subjects than you might come to expect. It is hard to talk that much about each of this people as it would give too much away. But it does lead to them asking some profound questions about who they are.  

     The book style is light and this helps to move the story along at a fairly rapid pace. For me, it felt like I was reading a collection of short story's set within the same world. Each one tackles it's on topics within the confines of the DNA matchings. Because of this, I think it makes it hard to give it a true genre matching, I felt this only added to my enjoyment of the book.  While overall it's been pushed as science fiction it is one of those books that is only a few steps away from the world we live in now. It's safe to say that this book managed to keep me glued to the pages as I was curious to find out how each matching ended up. And much like the multi-thread narrative their endings are just as spread out. The final ending to the book does at least draw this threads together and gives some form of closure not only to them but also a world that has given up on trying to seek out love on our own. 

     This was another of those books that is hard to review without giving so much away. Like I said before due to it being like several short stories's put together each with there own twists and turns it makes it difficult to not spoil the whole things. But I feel it would be well worth your time to pick up this book.