Next

How it reads

Next is science fiction (biotech thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in several locations, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are identity, power and politics and survival. In weight it's light and escapist — easy to fall into.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 431 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.