Polly Ho-Yen

Interesting book that reminded me of Helicopter Man in Part One as the premise is very similar at the beginning, Billy lives with his mother Sylvia after his parents were divorced. His mother is obsessed with teaching Billy survival skills and makes him memorize everything from a "How to Survive" pocketbook that she treats like a bible. Lately though, she has started acting stranger and more paranoid - taking Billy out of school early, quitting her job, believing people are following them and going out late at night with boxes of goods. It all comes to a head when she starts a fire in their apartment trying to burn some incriminating paper and she has to push Billy out a window to save his life.
Sylvia is then sent to a psych ward and Billy is sent to stay with his father Steve, who he hasn't seen for a few years. Billy is convinced that Steve doesn't want him, especially when Steve introduces Billy to his girlfriend and daughter and Billy is rude to the daughter. But meanwhile, strange things are happening....people seem to be turning grey and developing into shimmering monsters or , if they don't, dying and nobody believes Billy when he tells people what he sees (A survival rule is "BE OBSERVANT") except his new friend Anwar and Steve's girlfriend's daughter Angharad. (Think : Walking dead/Zombie Apocalypse)

What follows then is a race for survival across England with Billy using various methods that Sylvia taught him to try and reach the bunker ( tower) where she has escaped the psych ward and has headed to - -this bits a bit rushed and the ending where they learn how to defeat the Greys (zombies) came about very quickly but it is a kid's book about saving the world in a week so I shouldn't be too picky, should I?… (mais)

Handmaid's Tale meets Black Mirror. What happens when the world's fertility rate drops to almost zero? When child protective services can issue warnings to remove your child permanently if you are deemed an unfit parent? When most children actually get extracted before they are one, but women get financially penalised if they stop trying to conceive? There's nothing wrong with the book; it's well-written, interesting, with a good twist, but it left me wanting it to be better. The bleak but realistic ending didn't help. I need a good fluffy book after this.… (mais)

Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen is a bleak look at a future where women can no longer have children naturally. They have to go through a process called induction in which they have to take a regimen of drugs to help their bodies be able to sustain a pregnancy. For women who decide not to have children, well they are considered "outs" having opted out of this process. Women and their partners who decide to go through the process are paid more, have better housing and obviously valued more.
But once you have a baby, the "governments" involvement doesn't end there. Enforcers, people who watch you raise your child and give you IPS (infractions) for doing anything they consider wrong. After so many IPS they take your baby.
This story is about two sisters, one who wants and has a child and the other who is an "out". The story is told back and forth between the present "Now" and the past "Then". Its a very dark look at the choices women make and the lengths that they will go to keep their children.
I really enjoyed the book, it definitely had Handmaid's Tale (by Margaret Atwood) vibe about it as well as Vox by Christina Dalcher.… (mais)