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Friday, February 21, 2014

Book Review: The Office of Mercy by Ariel Djanikian

The Office of Mercy: A Novel
By: Ariel Djanikian

Paperback, 320 pages
Published January 28th 2014 

by Penguin Books


In America-Five, there is no suffering, hunger, or inequality. Its citizens inhabit a high-tech Utopia established after a global catastrophe known as the Storm radically altered the planet. Twenty-four-year-old Natasha Wiley works in the Office of Mercy, tasked with humanely terminating—or sweeping”—the nomadic Storm survivors who live Outside. But after she joins a select team and ventures Outside for the first time, Natasha slowly unravels the mysteries surrounding the Storm—and the secretive elders who run America-Five.

World Peace. Eternal Life. All Suffering Ended.

In America-Five, there is no suffering, hunger, or inequality. Its citizens inhabit a high-tech Utopia established after a global catastrophe known as the Storm radically altered the planet. Twenty-four-year-old Natasha Wiley has a job in the Office of Mercy, where those there “sweep” nomadic survivors outside. It is after the latest sweep that Natasha begins to feel unsettled. When she is recruited to join a select team to go outside she unravels secrets surrounding the Storm and the elders behind America-Five. She just may not like what she finds—that maybe utopia is more dystopian in nature.

Ariel Djanokian takes a story about Utopia and turns it upside down. It is an adult dystopian novel that left me feeling unsettled at the end. And that is what I think the author wanted.

4 sheep





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About the Author:
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Ariel Djanikian was born in Philadelphia and attended theUniversity of Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA degree from the University ofMichigan and is the recipient of a Fulbright grant.

In addition to Philadelphia and Ann Arbor, she’s also lived in Madison, Wisconsin, and Irvine, California. Her newly adopted city is Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband and daughter and hopes to stay for a long time. Her writing has appeared in The L Magazine and The Paris Review Daily. The Office of Mercy is her first novel.


2 comments:

  1. Usually when a story starts off with a world too good to be true, it usually is. Sounds like an interesting premise for a book. Thanks for the review.

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  2. I am not a fan of Dystopian, or disturbing, but I am glad you enjoyed it.

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