A Brief History of Living Forever by Jaroslav Kalfar is about a woman who learns that she has a terminal illness and decides to put her affairs in order. Adela is a native in a small Czech village. She spends most of her days taking care of her family and going to work. As she doesn’t have long to live, she decides that she will use this opportunity to reunite with her daughter in America.
Adela gave up her daughter, Tereza, when she was born decades earlier at the time of her birth. Adela is excited to revisit the country where she married a filmmaker and starred in a movie. However, things were completely different in 2030 since her last visit to the States. America is now ruled by an authoritarian government and has closed itself off from the rest of the world. Its citizens and residents must abide by strict rules and policies if they wish to visit or live in the country.
Tereza works for VITA, a cutting edge biotech company that will stop at nothing to discover the key to immortality. She is a lead researcher at the company and she hopes to help it in its quest.
Tereza is excited when she meets her mother for the first time and finds herself instantly connecting with her. Unfortunately, their time is cut short after a devastating event. Tereza tries to figure out where her mother is when she notices an alarming VITA activity in an abandoned area. She realizes she needs help to find her mother. She decides to find her brother, who she has never met to ask for help.
The novel was narrated by Adela’s restless spirit as she tries to navigate the world from beyond. She is unsure how she has consciousness without inhabiting her body. The book was a quirky SciFi read. It had some interesting moments, which gave insight into how the author viewed the possibility of a dystopian world. At times, I thought the book was too political. Some of the events the author mentioned happened recently in American politics that seemed like the author was trying to impress their opinion of current events onto the readers.
I thought the book progressed very slowly at times. The book was narrated by Adela in the present and when she reflects on her past. There were times I struggled to understand why she was telling a story from her past when it didn’t seem relevant to the current story. I didn’t really care for the book as it was very boring and I was struggling to finish it.
