What Would You Do If You Knew – For Certain – That You Had 10 Days To Live?
Some would get their legal affairs in order. Others would contact family, friends, lovers, ex-lovers. Some might take a trip or make an exceptional donation. Still others might clean the house and do the laundry. And some…might kill.
The year is the very near future. A brilliant young doctor and mathematician, Vijay … mathematician, Vijay Patel, has invented a new health/sport watch that monitors blood chemistry so accurately, it can actually predict when someone will die – within 10, 20, or 30 days. The intention of this “Final Notice,” as it is called, is to allow people to get their affairs in order and reach out to loved ones before it’s too late. But when those notified have easy access to a gun, the result is sometimes lethal for more than just the watch-owner.
These are the stories of several people who receive their Final Notice and their very different reactions…including a desire to get revenge with impunity. They range from an 89-year-old resident in a retirement home to a U.S. Senator…from a benevolent widow to a crass tycoon to a noted climate change scientist.
But in this fresh, fast-paced, political thriller, page-turner, their stories are all set against the all-too-recognizable backdrop of a guns-gone-wild America, and the relentless push by the NRA and their surrogate politicians to make guns even easier to acquire.
Their stories are also connected by the involvement of several likeable protagonists. These include: the inventor of the watch … the FBI agent charged with stopping the killings…and a recently retired, middle-class couple, Vince and Trudi Fuller, with their brave immigrant friends and a very endearing Corgi, Miles.
Vince and Trudi live happily in their “California bubble” until Vince is knocked down by a young punk in a parking lot. His sense of shame and rage, resulting from feelings of age-related vulnerability, triggers a first-time interest in guns. Trudi resists, but later, an unprovoked attack on Miles and Vince – and a growing friendship with two courageous Syrian refugees – changes her mind. With very unexpected consequences.
There is plenty of dark humor and political satire in FINAL NOTICE, as well as touching scenes and outright suspense. So expect to laugh out loud, dry some tears, and bite your nails (not necessarily in that order).
It is, despite the somewhat “sci-fi” premise of the watch, a very realistic reflection of American society and the many problems we face today.
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Would you like to know when your time is up? What would you do if you had a week, a month, or a few days? Would it make a difference in how you lived your life? If you had easy access to a gun would it matter? Pretty deep questions aren’t they?
This is a pretty deep book, but it doesn’t read that way. There are a lot of socially conscious issues here but wait, don’t let that turn you off. It really is a good and a very possibly realistic story even if a little into the future. Maybe technology can’t tell if our time is up yet but this book makes us think about that possibility, and every thought about what we would do and what we would need to do is in this book. All in a fictional story, easy to read and yet covering very serious issues.
I liked it and enjoyed it. The characters are real people. The business world and the importance of making money is definitely a picture of our current “real” life. Many scenes from this book could almost have been real life occurrences in the past few years. I can’t say this book moved quickly for me. It isn’t what you call a fun read, but it was readable, and I thought it was worth my time.
It looks as if this is the first book for Van Fleisher. Hope it isn’t his last.
When you get the Final Notice, you know when you’re going to die. For some people, that means getting their affairs in order and spending their final days with friends and loved ones. For others, it means trying to check off any and all things remaining on their bucket list. For others though, more nefarious deeds make an appearance. If you’re going to die after all, what’s keeping you from getting revenge on those who have wronged you?
I think my favorite part about this book was the MC. A retired couple and their pet. It was easy to fall into this story because the wry humor and sassy personalities were instantly likeable. I’ll admit the beginning of the book was a little difficult for me to get into, but I kept listening solely for the fact that I liked the characters.
All in all, an interesting book with some solid concepts. The merge of sci-fi into this suspense/thriller made it all the more gripping.
Narration was solid.
This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.
Final Notice by Van Flesher was a very conflicting book for me. I was excited to read this book after I read over the description but found myself to be extremely disappointed. The concept was good but the way the book was written completely lost my interest. I debated a few different times about putting the book down but felt that I owed it to the author to give the book a chance. That being said, just because I did not like it does not mean that other readers would not find it enjoyable.
A company creates a watch called the VT2 and it can monitor a person’s health with surprising accuracy. It also has the capability of giving a person a Final Notice when it detects a change that will ultimately lead to death. At the same time, the NRA started offering a discount to senior citizens to buy guns in order to defend themselves in their families. On top of these two events, many states are being pushed to have loser laws that will make it easier for people to get guns. These three factors together line up to create a series of horrible events.
The Final Notice feature was intended to give people a chance to get their affairs in order. However, for some, once they get their notice they realize with having nothing to lose they can get revenge on people who have wronged them in the past. Some seniors lash out at others, specifically younger people who insulted them in some way. Other people go after political figures that they do not agree with. People who work for the company that created VT2 even joke about how if they knew they were going to die they had a list of people that they would try to take with them. The company ends up working with the FBI and a journalist to offset the negative impact of the VT2 and market it to the public in a positive light.
Many books did not include specifics about religion but that’s one does. I found that to be a nice change as it made some of the characters feel more authentic. It also tackled some hard issues, not just the gun laws but also refugees and immigration focusing on those from Syria. With how anti-gun and anti-NRA this book is I was surprised at how casually other issues are mentioned. I would think topic such as underage drinking, fake IDs, and teen pregnancy would also be shown in a more negative light and not just as a passing memory. There were also a few attempts at humor towards the end of the book that just felt weird, in fact, I am not even completely sure if it was supposed to be humor. The author says ” the author feel sorry…” and ” the author was tempted…” and as these are the only time this writing style is used it feels out of place. Morals are also called into question three different times over the course of this book. It makes the reader question just because you can make money off of something and it is legal does that automatically make it alright?
The target readers for this book would be adult to our supporters of gun control. High school teachers might find this book interesting to teach with topics for group discussion by the students. Also, people who are against the NRA, in general, would probably find the topics of this book to be enjoyable. After much the bay I have decided to give this book a 2 out of 4. Originally, I was only going to give the book a 1 but the concept of the watch is too interesting. Many chapters or paragraph felt repetitive of previous statements and I think that was largely what turned me away from this book.
The Prologue asks, “What would you do if you knew – for certain – that you had one week to live.” Van Fleisher’s science fiction thriller, Final Notice, explores this possibility when a technological guru, Vijay Patel, invents the ground-breaking watch, VT2. This is a user friendly device that can measure, analyze, diagnose, and even predict complex health issues. This is a dream come true. The device is ahead of its time and could lead to one of the largest IPOs in recent histories. But there is a fierce debate on whether to include a controversial capability: give the user “Final Notice” that death will occur within a selected number of days based on irreversible trends in the person’s health.
Based on initial testing in one hundred people between the ages of 65 and 90 around the country, there are disturbing findings that a few of the participants were involved in murders shortly after they received their 7-day Final Notices. The murders draw the attention of the FBI and news reporters. Are these murders random coincidences or a potential risk the developers had not expected? The intrigue heightens when the developers decide to expand the number of participants in their beta testing and to test whether the variable of gun ownership increases the risk of participants choosing revenge as their last act before they die.
The story is effectively told from an omniscient view point of the narrator, i.e the author, who holds strong political beliefs regarding gun control. The author weaves several sub-plots together by using the perspectives of VT2 developers, law enforcement, news agencies, participants in the study, and survivors of these murders. The story kept me in suspense on what participants would choose as their final act before they died. There were some unexpected twists I had not anticipated.
In the beginning, it was difficult to get into the story because the points of views changed frequently, sometimes in the same chapter. However, by the end of the story, I cared about each of these characters and understood what motivated them. Although this is a science fiction book, it has modern-day relevance on the issues of gun control. The author demonstrates that he has done extensive research to support his writing.
Overall, I found Final Notice to be an intriguing and thought-providing read that explores the universal question that, if you only had a few days to live, what would be your last act. It has political intrigue culminating in unexpected twists. Without hesitation, I give this novel 5 out of 5 stars. I recommend it to readers who enjoy suspense with the modern day relevance of gun control.
Over all the book Final Notice, by Van Fleisher, has good content. The average person could conclude what the intended purpose of the books was, by having read the book. But, the books meaning is only inferred by the books title. The covers picture; does give it away the topic of the book, gives a perception of what you might think that the book would be about. A books topic is running ramped in all our communities of the world and gets people all riled up in to thinking that it might be ok, when in fact it is never ok.
The title is misconstruing; for most these words would normally lead a person to believe, that the book would be about a person that has just given notice to termination their employment with a company. Not the case here, the title did however, attract my attention enough to read the book; only to find out that it was coined for a different type of meaning. A topic that does need to be questioned, discussed and thought about, more clearly.
The books cover picture; was inclined to blow the cover off for the story inside the book, (no pun intended). Pictures are always worth a thousand words. Each has an inferred: meaning, a vision, a purpose; they add color, and perception to the cover. Sometimes the covers picture will cloud the meaning of a book.
This story is an accounting of one man’s experience, of a single day of his life. Things that can and do happen to each of us, every day. His story tells of how we tend to cope with the events, be it the right or wrong way. The normal way of thinking for most of society; is becoming an issue for us all, the things that can and do happen in our society daily. This books topic, can raised our culture to be rational in the choices made; therefore, I must give this book a 3 out of 4 rating.
Our world has become a melting pot of: cultures, and beliefs; a world filled with differences. No matter where you look; you will find something having to do with one person or a group of people, taking control over someone else. Who is to say; what is the right way to stop these everyday occurrences. A way of stopping the cycle, being able to end the need, and going home to live in peace; on this planet we call home.