The One by John Marrs

 

I was still in the mood for some suspenseful science fiction after my last read, so I decided to try The One by John Marrs next. I first heard of this adult sci-fi thriller from a BooksandLala on Youtube several months ago. I remember that she was surprised by how much she liked this one. so I picked it up on her recommendation. I settled in hoping for one of those exciting, can't-put-down experiences.

The plot of The One centers around a time in the not-so-distant future where a scientist has isolated a gene that allows someone to match with their one, true love. Once this discovery went public, a worldwide database was established for the purposes of matching people with their perfect partners. Interested people send in a mouth swab with their DNA on it and hope to get matched to someone in the system. The test is never wrong, and this service has changed the way relationships are formed irrevocably.  It has created many happy marriages and caused domestic violence and divorce rates to fall. At the same time, it's ruined a lot of relationships established pre-matching, as coupled people submit their DNA out of curiosity and end up leaving their original partners. 

The novel follows several different characters who have all received matches that aren't what they expected. For example, one is a woman who finds that her match has died by the time she is alerted to him in the system. Another is a man who is matched with another man, despite the fact that he doesn't believe he is gay. Another is a serial killer who took the test for laughs and is matched with a cop. Each character in the novel faces different challenges with their results and have to navigate through some difficult and painful situations in order to find their happy ending. 

This novel is structured around extremely short chapters that hop from character to character and end on cliffhangers. For that reason, I don't want to go too in-depth with my summary. It would spoil some of the fun of discovering shocking twists on every other page, and this book really is a fun one. I was completely drawn in from page one and I raced through it in just a couple of days. The pacing was very quick and the strategies of switching characters frequently and short chapters really made it fly by. All of the characters were interesting and they shared in the story pretty much equally. I didn't feel like any of the plotlines were boring or unnecessary. They all offered a unique spin on the idea of genetically perfect matches, and all the troubles and joys that could potentially come from them. This was a very dramatic, soap opera-like kind of science fiction, so you have to suspend your disbelief while reading and just go with the flow. I felt like the plot was engaging enough throughout that its more sensational aspects didn't bother me.

While it's clear that The One isn't meant to be high literature, I thought it asked some really interesting questions along the way. If science ever could be used to determine a person's ideal partner, I think that some of what Marrs played around with in this story might come to pass. For example, the idea of "matched" people being more highly regarded than "unmatched." Relationships born from matches are seen as more desirable and more valid, leaving people that can't find a match in the system relegated to second-rate dating apps and a vague sense of hopelessness. I could definitely see that happening in reality. It already happens in society with partnered versus single people, albeit to a lesser extent. Another interesting question was the idea of what to do with inappropriate or impossible matches. You could be matched with anyone, including a criminal, someone way too young or old, someone terminally ill, or someone who has already died. What kind of impact would this have on you, if you knew for sure that you couldn't be with your one true love? It's a rather depressing thought, and one that has interesting implications in the story. I really enjoyed thinking about how I might react across the different scenarios that Marrs introduced.

So ultimately, The One was a really great reading experience. It's the kind of intense, exciting book that would be perfect as the basis for a Netflix show and it's the perfect thing to pick up when you are looking for something easy and engaging. This is the kind of novel I'd be recommending to other adults if I knew a lot of people who liked to read in my real life, because I think most casual readers would be into it. That being said, as a lot of its enjoyment factor relies on surprising plot twists, I don't think it's one that I would read again. The book is at its best when it is revealing secrets, so once you already know what happens, the experience won't be the same. I'm going to donate it to make more room on my shelves and hopefully someone else will be as entertained by it was I was.

Challenge Tally

Clear the Shelves 2021: 4/50 (donate)

Total Books Read in 2021: 7