Who Would Like This Book:
If you love your thrillers with a hefty dose of dystopian, Black Mirror-esque twists, you'll be hooked on The Family Experiment. Marrs crafts a wild social experiment: a reality TV show where couples raise AI children in a high-stakes competition. The story zips between character perspectives, serving up cliffhangers, ethical questions, and a chillingly plausible look at where our tech-obsessed society could be heading. Perfect for fans of speculative fiction, page-turning drama, and twisty plots.
Who May Not Like This Book:
Some readers felt overwhelmed by the many characters and shifting perspectives, finding it tough to keep track of everyone. If you're sensitive to darker themes involving children or prefer your stories to stick to just one or two points of view, this might not be for you. And while many found the premise gripping, the fast pacing and multiple storylines might leave you wishing for a deeper dive into each character.
About:
The Family Experiment by John Marrs is set in a near future where raising children is expensive, leading to a reality TV show where couples can adopt AI babies. Each chapter focuses on different couples participating in this unique competition, where parents are judged on their parenting skills, and the stakes are high—win and keep the AI child, or lose and receive fertility treatment funding. The narrative is fast-paced, filled with cliffhanger moments that keep readers invested in each storyline.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings for The Family Experiment include themes of child harm, ethical dilemmas surrounding parenting, and the psychological impact of competition.
From The Publisher:
From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.
Some families are virtually perfect…
The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.
But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a virtual child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby…
Set in the same universe as John Marrs's bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi-a virtual baby.
Don't miss other suspenseful reads from John Marrs (you'll never see the twists coming!):
The Marriage Act
The Vacation
The Family Experiment
The One
Ratings (17)
Incredible (4) | |
Loved It (8) | |
Liked It (2) | |
It Was OK (2) | |
Did Not Like (1) |
Reader Stats (45):
Read It (19) | |
Want To Read (26) |
4 comment(s)
4
I really enjoyed this John Marrs book. Some of his in the past have been hit or miss but I enjoyed this one. The premise to me is...scary. I know it sounds nuts but AI is kind of scary for me ! I don't think I'd be comfortable going into a metaverse and feeling/smelling/experiencing another life and taking care of a child. It just is unsettling. And then after experiencing this extremely lifelike "person" they can just be "deleted"...nah. I also think reality TV can be fun, but most of it is just gross. I think the exploitation is shown well in this book- from one family using sponsorships/ads to having the "opportunity" to inflict a hardship on a family by voting. Anyways, this was a good read but sometimes was repetitive.
A dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate 'tamagotchi' - a virtual baby. So many twists and turns with this I loved it and the scariest part? It could actually happen the speed that AI is moving. Scary stuff.
3.5
I enjoyed this. The writing is typical of that thriller style - there's a lot of telling rather than showing, stating the obvious a few times, spoonfeeding the reader.
With that said, all in all a decent read that got me out of a reading slump, and a far better read (for me) than all the doorstoppers that are 3x longer than needed. Some interesting questions raised about the nature of AI and when/if it is 'truly' human, as well as a rather frightening glimpse of a not-so-distant future when privacy is sacred and faked information at the tip of a mouse pointer. The questions this raises about corporations and the ethics of AI were the strongest part of this book.
What can you read after
The Family Experiment?
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