This book was so good! I loved the characters, I loved the way the story unfolded. This was such an original idea and it was told with so much love.

This book seemed to have a slow start and I had trouble connecting with the characters early on; however, I persisted. As a physician, I got very involved in the ideas the author presented of medically- and genetically-induced immortality and the disparity it produced in the population. Overall, I liked it in the end.

The nearly disaffected tone & technology obsession of Touch mixes with the classist overtones as The Thousandth Floor, in a world where population growth & fertility are low but the chosen are living 150+ years with the expectation that immortals will become reality soon.

On the outskirts of the cities jam-packed with wealthy & regimented lifers, are the uncared for sub-100’s, those poor souls whose lottery numbers assigned at birth are too low to warrant the extreme measures & replacements promised to the lifers. Due to the sagging population growth suicides are absolutely forbidden and potential victims are monitored closely.

The MC Lea is shocked on the street when she sees her aging father after 88 years and mistakenly steps in front of traffic and her accident is assumed to be a suicide attempt. In her “treatment” group she meets Anja, who is soon to accept the reigns of a secret activist group trying to help the anti-life-loving population end their lives on their own terms.

Ugh, this is terrible. I'm behind in my reviews and am writing this two months after I read it, and mostly what I can tell you now is that it clearly didn't leave that much of an impression on me. I remember expecting so much more in terms of big ideas to chew on. It's a pretty good story with pretty good writing, but I wanted a lot more from it. I'd still give Heng another try, however.

I found this book to be thought provoking. It poses the question, would you want to live for almost 200 years? Technology has advanced and our bodies can be surgically updated.
I enjoyed the characters , 2 young women with very different lifestyles who end up meeting in a “recovery” group for those going against the grain of thought in society.
My criticism for this book is that it was a bit short, I would have liked to see more of how this lifestyle would effect people and our world.
An interesting and fairly quick read that I would recommend to Dystopian fans.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC copy of this book I’m exchange for an honest review .

The more distance I have from this book, the more I feel disappointed by it. The premise is interesting enough, if not a little obvious - in this futuristic NYC, the world is run by medicinal/pharmaceutical companies, who with the resources of the government seem to completely control who gets access to what thereby impacting life quality and expectancy. Lea, our primary main character, is on the surface the perfect candidate for the incoming wave of immortals until she gets in an accident that more or less ends with her being on suicide watch. As she tries to prove her innocence, she is forced to go to group therapy and worlds collide with our other POV, Anja.

This is a pretty standard dystopian, and the way Lea has so many thoughts on people's outward appearances of youth and beauty gave me some flashbacks to Uglies . The lyrical nature of the writing did elevate it in some places, but when I took a moment to think about what actually was being presented to me, things get dicey.

If the name wasn't obvious enough, there are some heavy content warnings for graphic suicide and self-harm, which are a large component of the story. Lea's character also has some pretty psychopathic tendencies, and there are mentions to two explicit flashback scenes where she beats a fellow schoolmate nearly to death and another where she mutilates the class bunny. (And for those of you wondering, no I am not going to put this in spoilers because I understand these can be very triggering topics.) Most upsetting to me, was the rape she commits on-page that is glossed over almost instantly. Unfortunately, though Lea's actions paint her very clearly as Not A Good Person, she is never presented with anything other than sympathy. I thought for a while we would be getting an antihero perspective from her, but alas, it never got that far.

I went into this story open-minded, but between the characterizations and a plot that I failed to connect with, Suicide Club was ultimately a let down.

This book came very close to being good, but never quite got there. I enjoyed the premise and its promise, but felt it was incomplete. The characters didn't stay with me and I felt it dragging towards the end.

Welcome to the world of the Suicide Club, where a genetic lottery determines how long you will live, and if you will become a lifer, a person with the potential to live forever. With immortality on the horizon, lifer Lea, like the majority of humanity is super health-obsessed, only doing low-impact workouts and forsaking all meat and alcohol. But in a world where the cake is a lie, who wants to live forever? Enter the Suicide Club, a group taking life, and death, into their own hands.

This book had beautiful imagery and I loved he way that this near-future New York was imagined and laid out, the kind of technologies we would have, the way that life would be. It's all identified and magnified in this book, drawn out to epic proportions that border on satire in the imagery of what humans look like a how our bodies regenerate and how technology has changed an evolved to the point that immortality is a clear possibility, But there were some stretches of the imagination that I was not prepared to make - like, medical school now takes 4 decades to complete, and corporate ladder climbing in this new world could take 100 years or so.

More importantly, the story line of Anja and Lea didn't hold my attention; they were flat and didn't rise to the challenge that this world poses of them, to be as vibrant and interesting as it is. These women were boring, and the writing was more focused on fluff and purple prose than on building characters that I would care to read about. Entire passages of narration went nowhere, as if Heng just got a kick out of seeing herself write flowery exposition. It wasn't enough to carry this book. The idea of this new world was much better than the execution of the actual story, which turned it into an average read. 3 stars

If you could live forever, would you? "Suicide Club" is a book set in the future where life can go on forever. Lea is considered a "Lifer" which means that she has a potential to live forever. She is the ideal Lifer until one day when she sees a man who looks like her dad and then everything changes. Lea is introduced to a club, a suicide club. The club's members have no plans to live forever so the club has to be hidden. But why would you want to end your life when you have a chance to live forever? Read the book and find out why. Read how the author writes such a unique and poetic book that is meant for every age group.

This book was SO interesting. It really gave you insight into what our world could be. The relationships between the characters and all the mystery going on with the Observers and WeCovert, really kept my mind wondering. I would definitely recommend this book, whether it’s your typical genre or not.

Modern medicine is making advances all the time, certainly not quickly enough for some, but at a much faster rate than in previous generations. What will that mean in the next few hundred years? How close can we get to curing everything? Could immortality be possible and if so, would we want it to be?

These are the questions posed in Rachel Heng's Suicide Club which introduces us to Lea and Anja, two "lifers" in the midst of their own individual struggles with the system and regulations of mortality. In a world in which the birthrate has dropped significantly, life extensions have become available in order to maintain human existence. At birth a child is tested and the results indicate how long they are likely to live. If the child is a "lifer", someone expected to live far beyond the average lifespan, they are given treatments to maintain and supplement their health. As the book begins, Lea is celebrating her 100th birthday though it looks quite different to any 100th birthday celebration I have ever seen. Lea is in the prime of her life (three hundred was now the number to beat) and her career. She is of the utmost health and is expecting any day to be invited to join the Third Wave, a set of life extensions that could lead to absolute immortality.

Anja is in quite a different position. She has all the advantages of being a "lifer", and in this society they are many, but her mother does not. Having obtained certain procedures and medical devices on the black market, Anja's mother's health has begun to fail beyond help, legal or otherwise. Unfortunately, the mechanical heart and other treatments she has prevent her from actually dying and she is stuck in a horrific limbo between alive and dead. Anja wants to help her, but how to do so when the choice to live or die isn't in the hands of the individual? And so we are introduced to Suicide Club, a group of activists intent on changing the mind of society about what it now means to be either pro-life or pro-choice.

The concept of this book was fascinating and so much of it was so good, but at times the plot seemed to lose direction a bit. The science fiction elements, however, were on point. The details from the types of treatments available to the health recommendations for longer life were well thought. Everyone lives to live longer. Gone are most of the foods and even many of the activities we regularly partake of now. No more meat, absolutely no sugar, veg only and even that isn't all recommended. Lea agonizes over a carrot at the market, hoping that since it will be shared by two people it won't be too indulgent. She leaves the grapefruit behind and plans to come back for one for her next Special Occasion. I'm all for eating healthy, but when a grapefruit and a carrot are too indulgent, how much LIFE is left?
Music is too stressful and has been replaced by relaxing Muzak; running wears out joints, but Pilates is still okay if performed carefully, but Swimlates was better.

This book was interesting and made me think about where my health may some day lead me. It also leads the reader to ponder how much control we actually have over our own lives, how much choice is really available to us. I didn't love this book, but I liked it really well.

My favorite science fiction is the kind that starts with trends that are happening now and then stretches them into the future in ways that are both plausible and ridiculous. Suicide Club is exactly that. It takes place in New York City roughly 300 years into the future where our obsession with healthy lifestyle trends has become the organizing principle of society. The all-abiding “Sanctity of Life Act” makes life all about longevity and nothing about living.

Lea Kimino is a successful, young hundred-year-old, a perfect physical specimen with a great job and benefits until the day she sees her long-lost, fugitive father and chases after him, stepping into traffic. This indicates she is not sufficiently concerned about her life, especially since she won’t explain, so they send her off to We-Covery and a couple federal agents monitor her at work and home, speaking to colleagues and even her boyfriend to investigate her antisanct activities.

Anja is another lifer–the people whose natal genetic test qualified them for a lifetime of longevity enhancements like self-healing skin, all trademarked to hilarious effect. She and her famed opera singer mother immigrated from Sweden so her mother could pursue the more aggressive American search for immortality. Of course, that meant that their musical careers suffered because the greatest enemy in this new America is cortisol, which meant avoiding emotional stimulation such as enjoying music. In fact, everything that makes life enjoyable seems to be bad for the constant equanimity of living forever.

They meet in We-Covery and both of them have important decisions to make about their parents. Lea’s father wants to die and Anja’s mother is mostly dead, except for a few enhanced body parts that won’t shut down. Meanwhile, the Suicide Club is broadcasting videos of lifers committing quite horrific suicides, their dramatic methods needed to overcome all the immortalizing technologies preserving their bodies.



I loved Suicide Club. It is such a clever idea and a beautiful send-up of the glut of self-help and diet crazes. It also poses the essential question, is living a long time more important than really living? The store cash register than adds up your RDA of nutrients, fat, carbs, salt, etc cracked me up. The whole birthday cake that is made for cutting, not eating, all of the satiric hilarity is a necessary balance to the gruesome realities of immortality.

I received an e-galley of Suicide Club from the publisher through NetGalley.

Suicide Club at Henry Holt & Co. | Macmillan
Rachel Heng author site


★★★★

Well, the cover of this book is beautiful.

The story and execution however.......

In the near future, humans are encouraged to live a super healthy lifestyle and to indulge in body modifications - enhancements and replacements. This creates humans who are able to live...almost forever. So, see...the concept is fabulous.

Suicide Club follows the lives of two women, Lea - a lifer, and Anja - a woman's who's mother is dying. Lea is 100 years old, a high-level executive in New York - and she runs into her father, 88 years after last seeing him. Lea creates the "Suicide Club' - which advocates for the right for everyone to live and die on their own terms.

The writing is okay, the characters are annoying. That being said, I think that Rachel Heng is a talented writer and I look forward to whatever she comes up with next.

A mindless summer read--the plot and writing style were fine, but there was a lack of emotional depth and the pacing was kind of choppy.

In a world where you can live to be hundreds of years old by having improvements made to your body as well as directives from the government about nutrition and exercise, society is split between lifers and sub-100s. Lifers like Lea get maintenance done regularly to ensure they are ready for the third wave that is coming soon. Immortality. Who wouldn’t want to live forever? The Suicide Club follows Lea and Anja, a lifer and a member of the suicide club, a group of “outlaws” that feel people should be able to die when they see fit. The story takes off when Lea and Anja have to work together in Wecovery (a group therapy for people flagged for trying to harm themselves).

Unfortunately this was just okay. The premise is phenomenal and had SO much potential, but the world building wasn’t done well. I felt like I never got a truly great grasp on all of the different aspects of the government until two thirds of the way through the book. As for the dual point of views...I felt like the voices of Lea and Anja were almost identical which made it extremely hard for me to understand the characters separately. Right up until the end of the story, I was confusing the background of each character because there wasn’t anything definitive that set them apart.

In th the future people are divided into lifers (being an immortal) or not. A lifer is someone who will live at least 300 years and maybe more by the time Lea reaches that age if not sooner. However to be a lifer, you have to be dedicated to be one. As life goes on, Kea will undergo life extension operations that aren’t that great. What does Kia think after seeing how the life extension operations effect her mother? She meets the Suicide Club whose members think that mortality in not normal or should be done. What will Kea do after all the different thoughts on immortality?

A fascinating look at immortality. This is a novel that made me think about what this type of immortality I would want. Would I want to be a lifer? Or would I want to be immortal as a goddess (other books I’ve read)? I enjoy reading this novel due to its subject of immortality.

This novel is set in a future dystopian society where there have been tremendous advances in medical science leading some people to have extra-long lives - and working on immortality, though they're available to only those whom genetic tests show have the capacity to live a long time. However, life seems to basically revolve around the pursuit of long lives, with many things banned - meat, sugar, and pretty much any food other than vitamin mush; most music which for some reason is thought to induce stress; even jogging. And of course, murder and suicide is forbidden for those with potential longevity so there is a lot of monitoring of those who might be "anti-sanct" or acting against the sanctity of human lives. This is not your typical dystopian novel - it's an adult book rather than a young adult book so no love triangle, there is little focus on the "lifers" who have the potential for longevity vs. the sub-100s who will live normal life spans, and while the "suicide club" of the title is definitely making a protest against society, it's not really about an attempt to take down the society's structure. It's definitely an interesting and thought-provoking book, but there's something very detached and remote about the characters and plot that left me a bit cold.

This was a totally different plot than any that I read. What would you do to survive in a world where looking young was worshipped and seeking unadorned normal death is considered suicide? I enjoyed the characters, the story line and the way this book makes you think "what if?" Interesting read.

“He told her about his daughter. About how she was smart and strong and different, how she thought there was something wrong with her because she sought the messy, sprawling innards of life, the flesh beneath the skin, the breakages. That she felt, deep within her, the violence of what it meant to live forever.”

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Henry Holt & Company. I have an impulse-control problem when it comes to books, obviously. Trigger warnings: death, suicide, body horror, rape, animal death, violence.

In the future, technology makes it possible to live for hundreds of years or, potentially, forever. Lifespan is determined by genetics and enhanced with near-indestructible organ upgrades and a hyper-focus on health and diet. As a side effect, death has become not only almost impossible but illegal. Lea is one of the “lifers”, expected to live for a minimum of three hundred years and dedicated to her job, friends, and living forever. When her estranged father resurfaces, Lea’s life is thrown into chaos. Kaito is “antisanct”, a person who shuns upgrades and health clubs in favor of eating meat, drinking alcohol, and dying young. Suddenly, Lea is under suspicion for associating with a mysterious antisanct group called the Suicide Club who rebel against immortality and choose death when they want it.

This book never quite took off for me. In part, it’s a genre issue. I’m weary of dystopian worlds and stories about perfect, healthy rich people who have everything and still can’t manage to be happy with it. It doesn’t help me live my life, and I don’t think it says anything particularly true about the world I live in. The other issue is, I think, one of execution. The novel fails to delve as deeply into its proposed topic material as it probably could, and it leaves the whole experience feeling rather shallow. On the other hand, the writing is usually good and undistracting (save for a handful of unnecessarily gross descriptions–as a non-meat eater, being in Lea’s head while she eats foie gras for the first time is nothing short of gag-worthy, and I don’t think the word “slugs” should ever be in the same sentence with a semi-romantic kiss), and the pace is consistent.

A big part of the novel’s problem is Lea. She’s just so uncompelling. Barely a thought goes through her head that isn’t about cortisol levels or what she isn’t allowed to eat, she often substitutes “health” for mere vanity, and she never pauses to think about why she actually wants to be immortal. She also has episodes of sub-psychotic rage, in which she kills a rabbit and then another child, and I can’t decide whether we’re supposed to empathize with her or not (though I landed firmly on not). She practically rapes her boyfriend, who doesn’t say no but whose discomfort is obvious enough to read on his face, and there’s absolutely no criticism of any of her actions. If these are effects of true life experiences being repressed or the burden of living forever, I’m not convinced. There’s no character development for at least 80% of the book, and her sudden change of heart is just that–it’s sudden, without the slow buildup or the explanation that would make it believable.

Anja’s circumstances are more interesting, but I never felt we got an accurate picture of her role in the Suicide Club or the club itself. The novel might have been more compelling from the perspective of one of its insiders, like Kaito. Suicide Club does less to interrogate suicide or immortality than it does the downsides of living forever if you’re not wealthy. The scenes of members drinking gasoline and lighting themselves on fire grow less shocking with each repetition, but the fleeting mentions of “farms” where people with mismatched organs waste away for decades never fail to horrify. The novel tries hard for the angle that living forever is meaningless without people and experiences, but it ultimately falls short on a theme that was already tired and nearing cliche.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.