Unlock Now The Second Cure Outlined By Margaret Morgan Released Through Publication
novel about the rapid spread of an infectious disease with a number of side effects, including synaesthesia, loss of religious faith, etc, and its societal effects.
We follow Charlotte, a researcher into the disease, and Brigid, a political journalist, as Australia, and their own families, change around them.
A really fascinating novel, and a great debut by Morgan although I highly recommend this, it is a fantastic debut! Urbanscifi is how I would described it, Or a contemporaryscifi. Just something different with religious/political aspects, The Second Cure is one book that you will read inand it will blow you away, As soon as I read the synopsis for this book I couldnt say no to a review copy.
Lets just say this book is fantastic and I am shocked that I am not seeing it on everyones book cases, their Instagram feeds and posting reviews on Goodreads.
This book ladies and gentlemen was utterly fantastic,
Not only is the Second Cure unlike any book I have ever read, Morgans writing style was captivating, the characters were compelling and delightful.
With a mix of science dont worry its easy to understand, fiction and a thriller with a spin of politics involved.
Amazing! I couldnt fault this book if you paid me to,
The Second Cure is based around two main characters Charlie and Brigid, Charlie is a scientist who is focused on finding a cure for a new plague that is targeting the worlds cats and I loved her sympathetic and energetic nature.
Brigid is a report who seeks the truth and these two woman were unstoppable as they took heed of world changing events and deciding fate that would affect generations to come.
I even found myself questioning if I would have taken the same path as them
Another aspect of the book I actually enjoyed was the science, mostly because I could actually understand what was going on.
For someone that drew skulls and love hearts all over her science book in high school and actually didnt absorb any of the teachers would I found it easy enough to follow what the characters were talking about without scratching my head.
Pretty much in my uneducated science background, the testing that was carried out seemed plausible and your heart raced as they tried to find a cure.
Have I also mentioned that I am a bit of a dark nut and this book completely satisfied my dark soul If not, go back and start the paragraph again.
There are scenes of torture, cruelty, and unground movement and riots, Need I say more
Have I convinced you to buy it yet Is it in your cart No Well, it should be.
Like I said earlier, I couldnt fault the book, The characters were compelling, the writing was smooth and comforting would even hold your hand through the torture and overall it was just a masterpiece.
I really wanted to rate this/, . . so close tobut not quite there, . . The story was great and it was kinda nice having a story set around where I live, . . however the scientific elements of the book were really dry and found that I "spedread" over those sections if there's such a word to get the gist but certainly didn't have the patience to read every word.
The book was a really nice change from my usual crime genre and despite the dryness of the science I really did enjoy reading it.
A great read. Thoroughly recommend. The cure, she called it, did you know that Not the cure to stop the plague, This was the second cure she said,
The Second Cure hit me like a bolt of lightning, I went into this novel with a fair amount of trepidation science fiction is not really my thing.
Or so I tell myself, But this year alone, Ive read more science fiction than ever before and each of these novels has been brilliant.
Ive loved them. And so it is with The Second Cure, a genre blend of science fiction with dystopian themes written in a literary style.
Utterly captivating, horrifyingly realistic and ultimately uplifting, I honestly cant recommend this novel high enough,
Margaret Morgan writes with exception, She presents a type of science that is not very basic in a very accessible manner, which was really lucky for me because my brain tends to become overwhelmed very quickly once anything becomes scientific.
But I really knew what was going on all the way through this novel, Too bad Margaret wasnt my science teacher back in school, For anyone who has been contemplating reading The Second Cure but has held off because of a fear of the science themes, you can shelve those concerns.
As well as writing with accessibility, Margaret has a way with words in general that seem to have them blending into the most beautifully atmospheric prose.
I was gripped with a certain sense of place while reading The Second Cure, Its a very immersive novel,
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the bush remained invisible, no cloud present to bounce back the light of the city.
On moonlit nights she could see down to Bujwa Bay, a tuckedaway pocket of the river that ran into the vast Hawkesbury and out into the Pacific Ocean.
But tonight there was no moon, and the were sharp against the night, the Milky Way looking like the smear of cream its name suggested.
From the pond below she could hear the knockonwood call of a striped marsh frog and from across the valley was the twotoned hoot of a solitary boobook.
Crickets and the metallic ting of microbats, There was no breeze.
The Second Cure has several narrators but the main two are scientist Charlie Charlotte and journalist Brigid.
These two women are almost sistersinlaw, Charlie lives with, and is the partner of, Brigids brother Richard, Another character by the name of Winnie also has an impactful presence in the first part of the novel.
She is Richards and Brigids mother, So you can see that this story revolves to a certain extent around a family, I really liked both Charlie and Brigid, Very different from each other, but both equally as passionate about their cause, For Brigid, her cause is the truth, Shes in it for the long haul and shes determined to unmask a proselytising politician who is rising rapidly by capitalising on fear within society I know, they all do that! But this guywell, you really just need to read it.
As a Queenslander the setting of the more extreme parts of the novel, my face was doing a good impression of that little shocked face emoji while my stomach was churning over the extreme right wing politics.
Its fiction thoughright Charlie, after years of research, is working on a vaccine as well as a cure for the cat plague that has the world within its grip.
Why does it matter if cats are dying Well, it matters a lot, because everything is connected, If cats dont exist, the population of rats boom, as one example, But its not just domestic cats dying, its big cats too, the lions and cheetahs and every type of cat all around the world.
Its wrecking havoc on the ecosystem, Furthermore, even though its a cat plague, its infecting humans, because they have become the host, The virus manifests itself in different ways, depending on the individual, something Margaret skilfully demonstrates by way of contrasting the experiences of her characters.
When Richard becomes infected, his symptoms force Charlie to regard the progression of the disease in a new light.
The need for a cure, and a vaccine, becomes all the more focused,
As a side note, on the topic of Charlie and Richard, I absolutely love the way Margaret sums up their relationship in this moment of introspection by Charlie:
At its worst, she worried that their relationship was little more than an exchange of facts and orgasms.
He told her things about music and art, She told him things about science, They had good sex. Of course there were other exchanges, too, He provided the accommodation free of mortgage or rent she earned most of their money, She paid for the food he bought it and cooked it, Just another symbiosis, like fungi and algae in lichen, But she loved him, and she knew he loved her, That added a buffer against imbalances, perhaps, Or maybe it magnified them, Was it true that in every relationship one person loved the other more
This novel spans a long timeline, more than fifteen years, but its split into two parts and jumps ahead in the second part, so its still very fast moving.
It really is a novel
for our times, It generated such a sense of unease within me, how familiar some of the themes seem when considered within the context of todays society.
I did not see the end result coming, I honestly had no idea what was going to happen with Charlie and Brigid, Were they going to pull off what they had each set out to do And what is the second cure How does it differ to the first cure and what is its purpose It all ends in a way that is both devastating and uplifting at the same time.
I was shocked and elated in equal measure, This novel is nothing short of brilliant, And the cover is absolutely gorgeous,
Charlie couldnt endure listening, This was her work they were exploiting, Her work had built Capricornia, Without her cure, Effenberg would not have been able to build his regime and equally vile dictatorships across the world couldnt have found their power.
Shed been trying to stop extinctions, to do good science, and she had indeed succeeded, but the pricethe price made her want to vomit.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Second Cure for review.
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