Review by Booklist Review
Zoe is a brilliant Harvard student studying chemistry and trying desperately to earn the same validation that her father, an academic, lavishes on her older brother. She sees an opportunity for greatness in enigmatic Jake, who seems brilliant, driven, and completely unbothered by the unwritten rules of Harvard's hallowed halls. Together, they become a nearly unstoppable team in their development of a pharmaceutical that could stop cellular aging, essentially the fountain of youth in a pill. With a trajectory that echoes that of Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos, Taylor's debut provides an insider's glimpse into the high-stakes Ivy League climate and the potentially devastating personal consequences for those caught up in ambition beyond their abilities. Zoe and Jake, both barely out of their teens, find themselves adrift and out of control in a dangerous house of cards of their own creation. The novel's focus is the breakneck pace of Zoe and Jake's success, leaving character development to play catch-up. This will interest readers who enjoy heady tales of academia and ambition or novels that delve into the underbelly of scam science.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Taylor shines in her intelligent debut about two Harvard students whose lives are upended when they discover a potential cure for aging. Sophomore Zoe is attracted to fellow organic chemistry major Jack, with whom she works on an extracurricular project in a retired professor's private lab. There, with Zoe's help, Jack stumbles upon a way to reverse the effects of aging. In between their exciting breakthroughs, their love lives become increasingly tangled. After Zoe loses her virginity to Jack, she falls for one of his roommates, and Jack invites a potential flame, whose father is a billionaire venture capitalist, to partner with the pair to produce an antiaging drug. Taylor thrills with her crackling and science-heavy depiction of the hothouse startup and its founders' dizzying ascent into the spotlight. The character work is just as impressive, as Zoe struggles to be accepted as a woman in a male-dominated field ("the part of the scientist was written male") and Jack strives to overcome his difficult upbringing, having been being raised by his great-grandparents after facing abuse from his single mother's boyfriends. After Zoe makes a shocking discovery that threatens to bring down their company, the plot ramps up, and readers will race through the pages to see what happens next. This is a winner. Agent: Katie Greenstreet, Paper Literary. (June)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Two Harvard sophomores rise to dizzying heights when they develop an antiaging drug. The brainy daughter of an MIT professor, Zoe gets distracted in her organic chemistry class by a very smart, unruly-looking boy named Jack. "Zoe found herself preparing the most esoteric theoretical questions to ask during lecture and familiarizing herself with the most esoteric experimental applications that she knew Jack would ask about so she could ask a follow-up question as though his initial questions had been common knowledge." There's a great deal of science talk in Taylor's debut; an afterword documents how far the author has gone to create a fascinating concept that is as close to real as possible. (Another reality-adjacent aspect is the seeming parallel to the story of biotechnology entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos.) Jack helps Zoe get a spot in the lab of an eminent professor who's working on an antiaging drug, but when she has an insight that could revolutionize the whole process, the two split off and begin working on their own, eventually dropping out of Harvard and getting venture capital funding to develop a drug called Manna. A TED talk, aVogue feature, a Porsche, and other markers of contemporary fame and fortune follow. Along the way, one of Jack's roommates, a computer science major named Carter, joins the team, and though it's clear that Jack and Zoe are meant to be together, Zoe moves in with Carter. The "young geniuses with a love triangle and a startup" aspect gives the narrativeTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow vibes, but the novel suffers from problems with pacing that undercut its emotional impact. The first half proceeds at a languorous rate, building the story from Zoe's perspective, then hits an inflection point and retells the whole thing from Jack's point of view, filling in his missing backstory. After returning to the climax, it races through a hasty endgame that is not as moving as it should be, and references to theEpic of Gilgamesh don't help. A convincing portrayal of the hothouse collegiate environment in the sciences by an author with exciting potential. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
