Karma Chesnut's "Unfit"...A Book Review

One of the most challenging events in any new family's life is preparing for the birth of a baby. Imagine facing this exciting, yet daunting arrival while living in a dystopian hell-scape where humans deemed until are imprisoned and sterilized. In Karma Chesnut's debut novel, Unfit, a family faces laws, family pressures and conditions--barbaric by today's standards, but considered reasonable at times through history--to try and find a way to be together.

Chesnut crafts a terrifying post-pandemic world where a person's physical worthiness determines not only their place in society, but what rights and opportunities they have. The decisions made in the story are logical (based on the society's warped sense of duty and correctness...), and well-developed. The reader gets a sense that something like this could actually happen, mostly because cultures have made such decisions in the past...polygamy, eugenics, etc.

I know dystopian novels were all the rage ten - fifteen years ago. And, they still may be. I haven't kept up on the genre since reading the Hunger Games and Divergent series. These stories succeeded due in part to the strength of the storyline and the well-roundedness of the characters. Unfit shares many of these traits. Because of how humans have acted in the past, it's completely believable that they would copy and reintroduce atrocities from the past into future societies. To me, that's what makes Unfit so frightening, is that this nightmare could happen, because it has happened before.

Unfit is available April 7th. You can access the author's website: HERE. It's incredible that Chesnut's story is being released now, at a time never-before experienced. If you like stories of courage, survival, and the enduring human spirit, give Unfit a chance. It's a good one!