Finished reading: Märket by Frida Isberg 📚

This is a novel I really recommend. It’s taking place in Iceland in a nearby future where people watch news and interact via holograms. The plot of the story is an upcoming referendum about a state controlled test of all citizens, an empathy test. If you pass you get all benefits in society, if you fail you ought to go to psychotherapy and are concidered a second class citizen. The argument pro the test is to prevent crime. The argument con is that this test will build a society less equal for all and where some people are considered less worthy. When the story starts it’s one week before the referendum and the polls are making both sides nervous. We meet the politician who’s been working for a mandatory test for years, a young man with an addiction problem who hates the idea of the test, a woman who fails the test her company already has implemented for their staff and a psychologist who has switch side. She used to be pro, now she thinks the idea of a mandatory test is a big step to a harder, more unequal and more totalitarian society.

The novel is utterly well written and makes you think. One given parallel is the pandemic and covid-19, another the increased supervelliance.

I don’t know if the book has been translated into English yet, but keep an eye out for it. It’s absolutely worth a read.