The Measure opens with everyone in the world over the age of 22 waking up to find a wooden box on their doorstep. Inside each box is a piece of string, the length of which indicates that person’s life span. What follows is the intersecting stories of eight main characters as they and the world adjust to the ramifications of the string. Should the military deploy soldiers whose strings indicated they are likely be killed? Would a long stringer want to marry a short stringer? Could and should governments require people to open their boxes and report the length of their string? Is that information which employers or banks or education providers or insurance firms should be entitled to? What would be the psychological ramifications of discovering you only had 1 year, or 5 years or 10 years left to live - and absolutely nothing could alter that? And how would communities be affected by so many people finding out that information at once? The various scenarios naturally reflect current social, economic and political realities, providing a different lens through which to view present day divisions, discriminations, and power imbalances.

This book is very readable and is full of discussion points, meaning it would be a perfect book club pick. It’s overall message, while obvious and a little trite, is still one worth hearing. A life cannot simply be measured solely by its length.

“The beginning and end may have been chosen for us, the string already spun, but the middle had always been left undetermin