The Only Ones: A Novel

It's the near future and the world has been ravaged with lethal epidemics. A sizable percent of the global population is dead and many parts of society are crumbling. This is a popular concept these days, and the setting itself is like a milder version of Station Eleven with a touch of Children of Men. Children are becoming increasingly rare in this environment, and illegal experiments in artificial birthing methods and cloning create backlash from fundamentalists.
This is all just backdrop though for a much more personal story about a woman with few means faced with the challenge of raising a child on her own in a hostile world. In this manner, it feels strangely relevant to the world today despite the distopian backdrop. This book makes you think as much about the difficulties of being a single working mom as it does the dangers of epidemics.
What I liked most about the book was the questions it raised: Ethical questions about test-tube babies, gene editing and experimental vaccines, questions about the effects of social and environmental factors on children, and many more. It doesn't seem like an insightful book at first because it's written in first person from a perspective of an uneducated young woman (in fact the narrative can get a little annoying at times) but it's worth pushing through, because the take-home messages can be quite powerful and it will leave you thinking afterward.