A review by brittaniethekid
-30- by Clinton W. Waters
3.0
This is a really interesting premise but the pacing was a bit slow for me. It's only about 70 pages but felt way longer as I was reading it and I wanted things to pick up a bit more.
It's basically a day-in-the-life story of a very sardonic, lonely man set in a world where on every person's 30th birthday, they either live to see another day or... they don't. No one knows if their 30th is their last. The lore isn't explained, only that this is the way it's always been, and what actually happens to the people who "don't make it" is left very vague but it seems like the entire person just disappears at midnight. Disregard time zones and different cultural beliefs regarding age and birthdays.
Our MC rents a boyfriend for what he assumes is his last day - a common enough practice in this world that it's an entire business known as Ephemera - and they go out on a date. Meanwhile, he's ignoring texts from all his friends and acquaintances and kind of being a bit of a party pooper. Granted, he assumes he's not going to make it and is severely depressed after the loss of his father, boyfriend, and then his sister (who made it, but then died in a car accident).
For a very short story, it's very dense but in a way that it leaves more questions than answers.
Don't expect a HEA or even an ending. This is one of those stories that just ends without closure, leaving the reader frustrated and wanting to know more. Read it for the interesting AU, but be ready to want to throw it across the room at the last sentence.
It's basically a day-in-the-life story of a very sardonic, lonely man set in a world where on every person's 30th birthday, they either live to see another day or... they don't. No one knows if their 30th is their last. The lore isn't explained, only that this is the way it's always been, and what actually happens to the people who "don't make it" is left very vague but it seems like the entire person just disappears at midnight. Disregard time zones and different cultural beliefs regarding age and birthdays.
Our MC rents a boyfriend for what he assumes is his last day - a common enough practice in this world that it's an entire business known as Ephemera - and they go out on a date. Meanwhile, he's ignoring texts from all his friends and acquaintances and kind of being a bit of a party pooper. Granted, he assumes he's not going to make it and is severely depressed after the loss of his father, boyfriend, and then his sister (who made it, but then died in a car accident).
For a very short story, it's very dense but in a way that it leaves more questions than answers.
Don't expect a HEA or even an ending. This is one of those stories that just ends without closure, leaving the reader frustrated and wanting to know more. Read it for the interesting AU, but be ready to want to throw it across the room at the last sentence.