The Lives We've Yet to Live - by Melissa Reddish (Paperback)

About the Book

Teenaged runaway Phoenix journeys across a blighted landscape of sexual predators, urban decay, and post-millennial anomie that is as jarringly familiar as it is alien.

Book Synopsis

What makes life in a futuristic dystopia unbearable for a teenaged girl? Is it the social chaos created by reincarnation suddenly becoming a disastrous biological reality, the army of corporate contractors out to profit from a system of mandatory euthanasia, or the seamy underworld of criminal organizations that help the rich to evade death-for a price? Or is it the very fact of life itself? As runaway Phoenix journeys across a blighted landscape of sexual predators, urban decay, and post-millennial anomie that is as jarringly familiar as it is alien, dumpy and middle-aged Virgil ambivalently stars in a reality-TV show about his metamorphosis into a dreaded "Enforcer." In this wickedly transgressive deconstruction of science fiction's most cherished traditions, Melissa Reddish has created a touching, anarchic anti-parable about mortality, identity, and the fragile bonds that bind us.

Review Quotes

"In this punchy and gritty novel, Reddish takes us on a thrill ride through the underbelly of a dystopian society where man plays God, giving and taking away life. It's a gripping and poignant reminder of how we choose to live, who we trust and keep close, when the only certainty is a setting sun."

- Steve Karas, author of Kinda Sorta American Dream

"A haunting story of a ravaged planet in which people reverse to infancy instead of dying . . . Reddish's accelerating prose sweeps the reader into questions of how to maintain one's humanity, and how to define humanity, in this world of menace and uncertainty."

- Tara Deal, author of That Night Alive and Palms Are Not Trees After All

"A heart-pounding, earthy dystopia, and Reddish's high-energy storytelling is breathtaking."

- Laura Ellen Scott, author of The Juliet