SOME FAMILIES ARE VIRTUALLY PERFECT 👀 In a future that doesn’t feel too far away, a reality TV show follows ten couples as they raise a virtual child- the prize; the right to keep their virtual child or risk it all for the chance of a real baby 🫣

@John is back with his newest speculative thriller out Thursday in 🇬🇧, July in 🇺🇸 I was totally captivated by THE FAMILY EXPERIMENT, it’s The Handmaid’s Tale meets Black Mirror; and will blow your mind 🤯

An engrossing, *so well done* story; filled with mini cliffhangers that will have you turning the pages and finishing the book in no time! Get the popcorn out 🍿

Are YOU ready for the highly addictive, clever and twisty book of the summer? It’s a book you’ll want/need to read 👀 Don’t forget to hit save to remember to get this one! 💾 This

All I can say is WOW WOW WOW! There aren’t enough stars in the sky for this book. It’s definitely my book of the year, and probably of the century! Set in the same world as The One, The Passengers and The Marriage Act – 3 of My favourite books, this is another of John’s speculative fiction books and up there with the best.

Imagine a future where AI is as common as watching TV, and people are struggling to have children both for financial and medical reasons. Unfortunately, this isn’t a hard stretch of the imagination. A company has come up with the innovative idea of providing AI babies who you can interact with in the Metaverse. To kick it off, they sponsor a reality show where couples compete to bring a child up in the Metaverse in front of millions of viewers, who will vote some out, whilst giving others difficult tasks. The winner can choose whether to keep the child or to use their prize money to start a real life child. The losers’ children are deleted. This seems very simple, but as you delve deeper into the couples (and one single parent) most have secrets to hide.

At first sight this seems like a set of disparate stories, but with the genius that is John Marr’s (don’t tell him as he’s big headed enough as it is 😂) they are brilliantly woven together to produce a fantastic novel which will keep you riveted and reading ‘just one more chapter’.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6480590582

He’s done it again - John Marrs has proved his place in the literary world. Set as in other books slightly in the future where A1 reigns supreme. Scary but oh so believable that it could happen. A page turner from start to finish

Why haven't I read a John Marrs book before?! Absolutely loved this! Set in a near future the story follows ten couples who are competing in a reality TV show to raise and ultimately win an AI child. Each chapter follows a different couple and throughout the book we learn their motivations for taking part in the social experiment and also the secrets from their past they are hiding from everyone.
I was hooked from the first chapter, the reveals and twists this took left me reeling a few times and I even stayed up late to finish it as I needed to know how it would end. I'll definitely be reading more from John Marrs, question is what one do I pick up next?

This book absolutely blew my mind! I’ve read a few of his previous books and finding the golden nuggets of them scattered through this one was fun. The twists were amazing throughout. I hated 90% of the characters but it takes a brilliant author to write such a great book with such awful characters. 100% recommend this book to EVERYONE!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of the ARC.

I love everything written by John Marrs and this one doesn't disappoint at all. Its clever and all characters are relatable. The story keeps you engaged and when you are nearing the end, you don't want the book to finish. Now only if there was a way to clone John so we can get double the number of books in the same amount of time. Superb book and can't wait for his next one!

I finally read John Marrs and I'm so happy I did. "The Marriage Act"'s been on my bookshelf for a while now and if this sounds similar, it's because it (along with "The Passengers") is set in the same universe.

An intriguing premise where people in the real world compete to raise a child in the Metaverse, it was loads of fun with short chapters and twists. In the beginning, I found it hard to keep track of all the characters but it's obvious who we need to watch out for.

The book is a perfect fast-paced thriller that's great to get you out of a slump and the topic of AI and its possible implications was thought-provoking.

I can't wait to read the other books from the author. Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan for the e-copy!

4.5/5

Thanks to. Netgalley and Pan McMillan for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

At some.point in the future, people who can't have children are given the chance to be parents to avatar babies in the metaverse. They will compete in a reality show and whoever wins gets to either keep their avatar child or cash in on the price money. The other avatar children will be destroyed.

As usual the imagination of John Marrs produces a super interesting book. As a rule I do not read sci-fi or futuristic novels for any reason. The only exception is John Marrs. He manages to come up with these concepts that sadly aren't all that farfetched and the back stories of the people are always interesting. As expected this was another super interesting page turner.

As is often the case with books that I pick up, I didn't know much about this story beforehand. I knew it was dystopian and the title gave me an inkling, but it ended up being so much better than I had anticipated.

Stories such as this one (when done well) always leave me with a funny feeling and keep me thinking for a long time afterwards. It leaves me with so many "what ifs" and can sometimes become a little bit frightening. This book delivered on both of those things. I think that it was the perfect balance of fiction mixed with examples of the state of real life society that made the entire plot feel plausible and terrifying. Within my lifetime, streaming TV was a completely alien concept and look at us now!

There wasn't a single character that I liked however I found all of them compelling. There were secrets layered on secrets layered on secrets and even those who I thought were good, were either hiding something sinister or made a decision that I disagreed with. I did however empathise with some of the characters. Some of them had such a deep need and longing for a child that they allowed their judgement and morality to become clouded.

this was an extremely engaging and compelling book. Packed with twists and turns that were impossible to see coming, but when laid out made complete sense. The concept was clever and thought provoking albeit horrifying at times. A fantastic read that I couldn't put down and highly recommend.

John Marrs has done it again with his new book The Family Experiment. Set in the near future and in the same universe as The One, The Passengers and The Marriage Act. You don't have to read the previous novels to enjoy this one, but if you have there are some little easter eggs scattered throughout.

Contestants in a new reality show compete by raising an AI child in the metaverse. The show is live streamed and the audience can show their reactions by way of red hearts and black hearts. They can also vote on situations to put the parents in. Of course each of the contestants have dark secrets that they are trying to hide.

The scary thing about this book is it's not too far from the reality. You could feasibly see it happening in real life and that's utterly terrifying. I don't want to give too much of the plot away but I will say there are unexpected and shocking twists and it had me completely gripped right until the end. I also loved the social media inserts which were humourous and very realistic.

I would highly recommend this addictive thriller or indeed anything written by this author. Thanks to Pan Macmillian and Netgalley for the ARC.

Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! I am a huge fan of John Marrs but this book is easily the best. In the not too far off future, a television competition is being run to see which people would be best suited to becoming parents, by giving them virtual babies of their own to look after. But these babies exist in a virtual world which the would-be parents visit by donning a special suit whereby they enter a Metaverse where they are with their virtual baby. The most voted for set of people win the chance to keep their child or to have money towards treatment to have their own child, e.g. IVF. The child ages by several years ever so often, meaning they are 18 at the end of the competition, despite it only being a few months long. As we learn the back stories and dark secrets of each contestant, we get more and more drawn in.
The whole book was amazing, but the ending, and the next ending, and the next ending were just brilliant. I am already excited about John’s next book! I just wish I could give it more than 5 stars!

Another phenomenal banger from John Marrs. Continuing his series set in the not too distant future, The Family Experiment builds on the potential horror of the The One, with DNA matches; Passengers, with self driving cars; Minders, with official secrets stored in people's minds and the Marriage Act, where couples are rewarded for compliance with continual monitoring or punished with a supervisory house guest. This new novel brings us into the dark world of AI and the misery of human trafficking. A reality show tracks a diverse group of couples and a singleton who are given a fast developing AI child in a competition which if they win with the popular vote, they may just get to stop their child being deleted... Being classic John Marrs each couple is not exactly what they seem and have secrets to hide. Brilliant.

3.5*

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

This book was addictive, just as the two previous books by John Marrs I've read. I flew through this book in just a couple of sittings and it had an incredibly interesting concept. The story itself was brilliant and very well written, I just found that the ending didn't quite do it for me, and dragged on slightly.

The format was perfect to the story, with us getting to dip in between all of the contestants, with each chapter adding more to the mystery of each individual. I just loved that everybody had something that added to their story!

I'm excited to see what John Marrs comes up with next!

A new experiment has begun in the UK where people can start a virtual family, being launched via a reality show. It follows couples as they raise their metababies from birth to 18 years in a condensed 9 month period, all of which is being live streamed to the audience. There are monthly challenges, polls for favourite couple and even the chance for the audience to show the contestants if they approve or disapprove of their parenting skills through heart emojis.

This was SUCH an incredible read that felt like an episode of Black Mirror! A truly frightening peek into a world that doesn't seem too far away in the future
Very smartly written with twists and shocks throughout. Descriptive characters, some of which were unlikeable and others you were rooting for in true thriller style.
Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for an ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

Reality TV, avitars, artificial intelligence, greed, deception are all words that describe this book. Thought provoking and imaginative are words I would add. An enjoyable and very different book from any others I have read, well done to John Marrs for taking me on this journey. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

I sailed through this in a day! I do love something that’s a bit Black mirror /near future. This book centres around a reality show which sees contestants raise a child in the metaverse over the course of 9 months. With the help of haptic suits their child will feel as real to them as possible, and will grow to be an 18 year old. Over the course of the 9 months the audience are able to follow along and nominate parents for monthly challenges. It all goes awry when within a couple of weeks one of the fathers cracks under the pressure and shakes his virtual baby to death. At the end of the experiment/ series the winning couple/ parent will get the possibility of a cash pot and the option of retaining their virtual child. The loosing parents will see their “child” switched off.

This was a fast paced read that mixed social media commentary with the story line. It was great seeing what each of the couples were trying to hide and the escalation up to the denouement The scary thing is that this doesn’t feel so far removed from reality… Thanks to netgalley for an advanced copy of the book. I’ve already started recommending it!!

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Seriously couldn't put this down, such a good book and thought provoking too. With the way technology moves these days you could easily see something like this happening in real life!

John Marrs is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.

3.5 🌟

This concept is definitely unique although there was some familiarity in the world itself which made it easy to step into. I did find it a little bit chaotic at first with soo many characters to keep track of; it almost made connecting to them a little difficult but at about half way it did feel a bit more focused

I really liked the exploration of AI from the perspective of the morals surrounding it, and it definitely does feel creepy as to what could come in the future. I think this really came through in the second half as more things unravelled and there were more existential elements for consideration that did genuinely get me thinking about my own views or lack there of.

I think intrigue was the main feeling I had during this one, I felt intrigued about the morality and the world however the set up meant it didn’t really go deeper than that. I very much felt like a spectator of the tv show as appose to really knowing any of the characters and that prevented me being as invested as I could be.

I thought the best part of the book was probably the middle, I found the start a little chaotic and the end portion almost trying to do too much. I wish the whole story had the steady consistency of the middle portion as by the end it was just trying to do a bit much to me.

Overall this was an eerie read however I just felt it a little bit too much of the same and would have loved a bit more depth to the characters to let me really connect

My review of The Family Experiment by John Marrs.
Set in the same futuristic dystopia as The One and Passengers (both are referenced), five couples have the chance to adopt a metaverse child. At the end of the Experiment they can keep the child, or it is deleted and they win money to start a family of their own.
One by one, the families are eliminated. They all have back stories, cleverly woven into the story. And at the end of the Experiment, once the winner is announced, we read about what happens in the aftermath.
An excellent read.

Within the confines of this book, I embarked on a journey into a world where reality and artificial intelligence intertwined in captivating ways. The narrative took precedence, leading me through a maze of suspense and intrigue.

As I delved deeper into the story, characters receded into the background, allowing the plot's intricacies to take center stage. Despite their flaws, they propelled the narrative forward, each twist and turn adding to the immersive experience.

The fusion of futuristic AI concepts with our own reality provoked contemplation, challenging my perceptions and inviting me to explore the nature of consciousness and existence in a thought-provoking manner.

While the climax may have diverged from conventional norms, its impact was profound. As the story drew to a close, I found myself reflecting on the author's ability to defy expectations and craft a conclusion that resonated deeply.

In this book, there were no fantastical adventures, but through its pages, I embarked on a compelling literary expedition that expanded my horizons and left me with a renewed appreciation for the power of storytelling to provoke thought and inspire imagination.