Book Review: Mandate: Thirteen by Joseph J. Dowling
Title: Mandate: Thirteen
Author: Joseph J. Dowling
Released date: January 10th, 2023
Since Tim McWhorter launched Manta Press, I’ve loved seeing the variety of phenomenal books that have been released. Spanning a wide scope of genres, Manta Press has quickly established themselves as a ‘must-read’ small press and one that you’re guaranteed to experience solid storytelling with lots of heart.
Case in point – Mandate: Thirteen. This one, while set in the very near future, has alarmingly real themes throughout and that alone pushed this into a truly uncomfortable reading experience.
I wasn’t totally sure what to expect going in, but this one packs a wallop.
What I liked: The story is set in a world where most women are now infertile and those who can have children are taken from their families and imprisoned in birthing facilities. Almost all of the ethnicities have been forced out of England and as the climate crisis worsens, prices rise, jobs become scarce and supplies limited.
Dowling does a solid job of teasing out these issues while also introducing us to the Randall family. The story really explodes when the fertility mandate changes to include girls aged thirteen. From here we follow father and daughter as they evade capture and attempt to make their way to the Scottish border and find a way to cross, hoping to get asylum.
The story is filled with emotions. We get a lot of secondary characters who are hard to trust, especially in such uncertain times and, as one would suspect, when trustworthy people are found, it’s only for a momentary reprieve, as those chasing quickly catch up.
There are plenty of twists and turns along the way, plenty of ‘hold-your-breath’ moments where you’re not sure what’s going to happen, and the ultimate climactic moment works really well to see how it relates back to decisions from the past.
What I didn’t like: Ultimately, for me, there were two things I wasn’t super keen on. The first was some of the dialogue was off. There were times where I read some of it and thought ‘nobody talks to each other like that.’ It might’ve been just me and for others it flows well, but specifically between dad and daughter, there were moments that I was pulled out of it by how the dialogue read between each other.
The second thing, which I can’t expand on too much as it would fall into major spoiler territory, was that I found there was simply too much extra stuff after the ‘ending.’ I do enjoy when we find out what happened after the finale and the final events have ended, but this kept going for a bit and was a bit much for me.
Why you should buy this: If you’re a fan of dystopian, all-too-real-feeling action based reads, look no further. This had shades of Nevill’s ‘Lost Girl’ throughout and was a thoroughly solid, great read that had me captivated the entire time.
Definitely one to bump up your TBR!
4/5
