A Review By Ruth Hunter, BookTime Editor, Bertrams

This chilling but brilliant tale from Sweden is reminiscent of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Nolan and Johnson’s sci-fi classic Logan’s Run. It’s set in a society where those who are considered ‘dispensable’ are taken into the eponymous Unit when the women are 50 and the men 60. These dispensable people are those without children and those who do not have profitable jobs which sustain the economy; many of them are artists and writers. The Unit is a luxury environment, and the inmates have free food, accommodation and entertainment – but they are forced to be guinea pigs in medical experiments and to donate their organs to the more ‘needed’ people outside. Following one woman, Dorrit, and her story, the novel explores the hideous idea that someone’s worth as a human being can be measured in social and economic terms, and is both thought-provoking and frightening.