TITLE: Hacking the Code of Life: How Gene Editing Will Rewrite Our Futures

AUTHOR: Nessa Carey

DATE PUBLISHED:  2019

FORMAT:  Paperback

ISBN-13:  9781785784972

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DESCRIPTION:

"Just 45 years ago, the age of gene modification was born. Researchers could create glow-in-the-dark mice, farmyard animals producing drugs in their milk, and vitamin-enhanced rice that could prevent half a million people going blind every year.

But now GM is rapidly being supplanted by a new system called CRISPR or ‘gene editing’. Using this approach, scientists can manipulate the genes of almost any organism with a degree of precision, ease and speed that we could only dream of ten years ago.

But is it ethical to change the genetic material of organisms in a way that might be passed on to future generations? If a person is suffering from a lethal genetic disease, is it even more unethical to deny them this option? Who controls the application of this technology, when it makes ‘biohacking’ – perhaps of one’s own genome – a real possibility?

Nessa Carey’s book is a thrilling and timely snapshot of a technology that will radically alter our futures."

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REVIEW:

Nessa Carey has written an introductory, some-what opinionated, easy-to-understand, and rather short book about gene editing.  She covers the basics of the technique, the history, the advantages and occasionally the disadvantages, in terms of medical uses, with several examples.  The book is interesting and informative, but I really wished for more technical details.

Why all the Data hate, Riker? I guess because I have known these characters for decades, I have a hard time ever thinking the Enterprise  was anything but a family with Poppa Picard at the head of the table.

Also, Data. Always adorable.

Sorry, not sorry, DNFed this at 17 percent. My brain got mad at me and then I heard a buzzing noise and that's it. This is too painful to continue. I hope it gets better for those who continue with it. Since I loved "The Girl With All the Gifts" and was meh to annoyed with "The Boy on the Bridge” I hoped this one would land on the side of me loving it. Too bad. The writing is what killed this book for me. I get what the author was going for, but you have to think through doing "gimmicky" things in your books if it's going to make some to most of your readers want to tear their hair out. This reminds me of a book I read last year which for some reason decided to highlight certain words in red. No idea what the hell was happening there and it was distracting. 

"The Book of Koli" is M.R. Carey's first book in his "Rampart" trilogy. In this new world we follow Koli who is a young boy living among trees and seeds that can kill. Yes, someone trees are able to just murder people. So they are like the Ents in "The Lord of the Rings" or actually this book is similar to "The Happening" but somehow more annoying.

I can't even speak to the characters in this book. Told via Koli's POV we are stuck in the head of a young boy named Koli. Carey has the writing follow Koli's thoughts and since Koli doesn't speak full sentences or proper grammar you find yourself re-reading sentences over and over again to get the proper meaning. I mean my eyes glazed over when we had Koli explaining why he apparently says "road" as "rood". Deep breath. I cannot right now. I am in the house, listening to music to keep my ire and anxiety down and this book is making me anxious and stressed. 

I am going to give this until 20 percent before I DNF it. 

Before anyone yells at me, I get why Carey wrote Koli the way he did. He wants him to sound simplistic and show how the world has changed since Nature went "Whoop-Ass" on humanity. But it is way too hard to understand sentences because Carey wrote Koli using the wrong words/verb tenses, grammar is all over the damn place. Sorry, this is just messing with me and I can't concentrate on it as I read.

Trying to get through "The Book of Koli". I don't like it. I think I may be DNFing this thing soon.

I also started "Captivated" by Nora Roberts which is dry and doesn't even read like a Nora Roberts book. So looking 0 for 2 on Friday reads.

Next up will be "Under an Alaskan Sky". I loved the first book in the series, so can't wait to start this one. If not today, will definitely be reading this over the weekend.

What are your #FridayReads?