The Only Ones: A Novel

It's about 3.5 stars. I really liked this book but the first fourth to maybe third of the book is tough to read. The main characters style of speech and level of understanding of what's happening around her make it hard for you to suss out what's happening. After that though it really picks up and I blew through the rest of the book.

It's the near future and the world has been ravaged with lethal epidemics. A sizable percent of the global population is dead and many parts of society are crumbling. This is a popular concept these days, and the setting itself is like a milder version of Station Eleven with a touch of Children of Men. Children are becoming increasingly rare in this environment, and illegal experiments in artificial birthing methods and cloning create backlash from fundamentalists.
This is all just backdrop though for a much more personal story about a woman with few means faced with the challenge of raising a child on her own in a hostile world. In this manner, it feels strangely relevant to the world today despite the distopian backdrop. This book makes you think as much about the difficulties of being a single working mom as it does the dangers of epidemics.
What I liked most about the book was the questions it raised: Ethical questions about test-tube babies, gene editing and experimental vaccines, questions about the effects of social and environmental factors on children, and many more. It doesn't seem like an insightful book at first because it's written in first person from a perspective of an uneducated young woman (in fact the narrative can get a little annoying at times) but it's worth pushing through, because the take-home messages can be quite powerful and it will leave you thinking afterward.

The Only Ones is your average mother-daugther story, except the setting is a post-apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by disease and the daughter is a clone. I know you're thinking, thanks for the spoiler, but these details are all established very early in the story. I'm not giving too much away here.

Surprisingly, what works best about this story is the mind of the mother. She's a little slow at times. She's also extremely repetitive (“I will tell you this,” “maybe you are thinking,” “I don't even have to,” “I just,” “I must of,” “it's all I can...”, etc, etc.); it's neverending. Aside from her quirks, Inez is in many ways a typical mother with typical worries who has a way of earning the reader's sympathies. If she were someone you met in your daily life, you'd likely find her irritating or far from interesting, but given a window into her mind, she becomes your very own mother, the good and the bad. It is this universal mother that shapes this story and gives it all of its strengths. Sure there are raiders and philosophical questions about life and pages full of scientific explanation, as there are many intense moments, yet at its heart, The Only Ones is a story of a mother's heart. It's as simple as that.