Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Marriage Act

I received this book as a gift.
"The Marriage Act" takes place in a near future world in which you can elect to upgrade your marriage to a Smart Marriage. Doing this means that you and your spouse will be monitored 24/7, but you do gain access to all the best housing, hospitals, and more. This story follows four different couples who are having their own struggles, and questioning if the government should really be this involved in their personal lives.
I thought this was a really interesting concept, and highlighted technology that is not too far off from existing. In a world where our devices are already always listening, it seems pretty plausible that Alexa could just as easily listen to our interactions and provide feedback on how to improve our relationships.
The couple in particular that really struck a chord with me was Arthur and his wife. Devastatingly, Arthur's wife passed away, but he did not want to notify the government of that because he did not want them to take her body away. They had a long and happy marriage, but because they were in a Smart Marriage, Arthur made some poor decisions that put a target on his back. In order to not lose everything, the entire life he worked so hard to build, he had to find a new wife quickly, which seems absolutely bonkers. This is a prime example as to why the government should not be involved in people's personal lives.
There was a subplot about deep fakes in this story that I think is very timely and everyone should take the time to become more aware of. It is so easy to be fooled by what you see online, and AI is advancing at such a rapid pace that you really never know if something is truly authentic.
I really enjoyed this book, and I am looking forward to reading more from John Marrs in the future.

Content Warnings

theinstabookworm's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What's so deeply unsettling about this book is that it's not out of the realm of possibility for a similar society to exist in the real world in the future. We've already seen recently how the government can control our rights and this book takes it one step further with AI intervention. The Audite is akin to Alexa and Echo in the real world, but Audite records the conversations of each of our main characters and their spouses and monitors them for the government. 🤯

Some things didn't age well (i.e. mentions of Twitter, IGTV), but that's a very minor detail and not something that had any kind of effect on my reading experience. Also, I found the pace to slow a bit in the middle, but it did pick up. Marrs is an auto-buy author for me and I'm very excited for his two new thrillers coming out this year!

Favourite quote: "Don't do as you're told when you know something is morally wrong. Have the strength to stand up for what you believe in. Don't be afraid to confront your enemy or they will continue to rise in the most unexpected ways."

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nerdyprettythings's review against another edition

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dark tense

3.5

Set in the future of the world from The One (which I really loved!), this one was a little bit of a miss for me. I still really enjoyed some of the thriller aspects, but this one is much more BLEAK y’all! I feel like The One was already pretty heavy in parts, but ultimately hopeful. There are very few characters to root for here, and at the center of the story is a cartoonish government conspiracy with one shadowy main figure. I just don’t think the world was as thought through, or maybe it reflects like tech-fear headlines that are outdated now.
Also, it’s a super conservative future world where staying married is cynically the goal because it’s best for the economy - but then people say things like “body shaming is a thought crime.” So whose totalitarian future are we in? These sort of random “oh that’s illegal now” felt anachronistic.
Definitely check the TWs on this one, basically all the bad stuff happens and a lot of things are described graphically

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amandasupak's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

4 stars
Named characters: 91 (Phew, this is a ton of characters because you follow several main character's plot lines. Pay close attention to the names and you will be able to make some connections in the plot before they are officially revealed!)

Overall, this was a fun read. His style of writing is to follow several different stories, written in short chapters, and swap between them all. It keeps the tension high and the momentum up. All of them have secrets that are slowly revealed in this very near-future dystopian world where you can upgrade your marriage to get lots of tax breaks but you will be spied on by AI to make sure you are getting along. If you start to have fights/issues the government will start to monitor you more, send a human counselor to interview you, and then if everything is not resolved force you to divorce. A lot of the plot is creepy like a black mirror episode, and some of it is rather implausible. In either case, it's very binge-able!

Trigger warning, there is a lot of murder in this book. And most of the time it's fairly graphic too.

Content Warnings