Har­mony

(Ama­zon, Goodreads)

by Project Itoh

(Ama­zon, Goodreads, Wikipedia)

Pub­lished by VIZ Media July 20, 2010

In the future, Utopia has finally been achieved thanks to med­ical nan­otech­nol­ogy and a pow­er­ful ethic of social wel­fare and mutual con­sid­er­a­tion. This per­fect world isn’t that per­fect though, and three young girls stand up to total­i­tar­ian kind­ness and super-​​medicine by attempt­ing sui­cide via star­va­tion. It doesn’t work, but one of the girls—Tuan Kirie—grows up to be a mem­ber of the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion. As a cri­sis threat­ens the har­mony of the new world, Tuan redis­cov­ers another mem­ber of her sui­cide pact, and together they must help save the planet…from itself.

This is truly an amaz­ing book.  It’s a full book, plenty of action, great char­ac­ters, and a unique style.  It’s writ­ten as though you’re expe­ri­enc­ing it from a com­puter in that it is full of HTML and it uses that to its advan­tage.  The reader is given emo­tions and insight through the tags and this helps to really bring the book to life.  I’m sorry I put it off on my TBR pile for so long.

In more ways than one, this book makes a lot of valid points about our soci­ety and where its poten­tial lies.  It is not hard to see the poten­tial of the WHO of Tuan’s world com­ing to a real­ity in our not so dis­tant future.  I feel I would be like Tuan and break out of society’s mold, putting myself out there into poten­tially dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions for the pos­si­bil­ity of secur­ing alco­hol or tobacco, vices we take for granted today, just to feel different.

But there is also a part of me that desires what the WHO offers, a way to main­tain your exis­tence with­out hav­ing to make all the deci­sions your­self.  The com­put­ers tell you what to eat, mon­i­tor your vitals, never get­ting sick, and while that can be good for a while, I won­der if peo­ple could really exist like that for any long term period of time.  Per­haps if, as Tuan’s pre­de­ces­sors expe­ri­enced, some­thing extremely hor­ri­ble hap­pens and it is the way found to pre­vent it hap­pen­ing again.

I sug­gest you pick this up if you enjoy a good dystopian novel.  It is truly amaz­ing and I was look­ing for­ward to read­ing more of the author’s work when I fin­ished.  Alas, when I read the small blurb at the end about the author, I learned that he passed away a few years ago, and that this was the only book.  If noth­ing else it is a book to read and savor as there will be no more to come.  And if that’s not enough of a sell­ing point for you, it has received rave reviews and won a num­ber of awards.  It’s just that good.