August Review – All Better Now

Concept: In Neal Shusterman’s latest novel, a new Coronavirus variant is reaching pandemic levels. Survivors of the new variant recover as new people–without worries, without anger, without greed. They are happy with a simple life. The novel follows several key characters: a prodigy who is given access to money and power to create a vaccine for the virus; the youngest son of one of the richest men in the world, who purposely contracts the virus to quell his own anxieties and depression; a homeless young woman who finds herself orphaned by the virus, immune from it, and partnering on a mission to spread the virus.

My Take: This novel reflects realities, concerns, and reactions to a pandemic, but sets up an intriguing question: Would everyone being happy be good for the world? The novel is engaging, but didn’t hook me like the Unwind series or the Arc of the Scythe series. Still it has an open ending that suggests more books to come. 

Zee picked up a stone from the pier and tossed it into the water, watching the ripple it made spread outward toward Alcatraz. “No, a successful virus isn’t one we go to war with; it’s one we invite in. It’s one we want to give to people we love, not because it makes us do it against our will, but because we choose to—because it genuinely makes our lives better.”

All Better Now

Recommendation: The novel does include depression, anxiety, and a suicide attempt. However, this would not stop me from adding it to my high school classroom library. Like many books published today, it does have LGBTQI+ representation, which may cause problems for some teachers in schools or districts with highly restrictive library and classroom library policies. Publisher’s Weekly recommends for ages 12-up; Booklist grades 9-12; Kirkus Reviews ages 13+.

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