Title: Memoirs Of A Lab Rat
Authors: Stephen Colson and Cynthia Colson (brother and sister)Publishers: Neptune Books
Published: 15th June 2016
Pages: 158
Rating: 6/10
This book was quite interesting I have to say, I don't have extensive knowledge about memoirs, the only other one I have previously read was The Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. Although I have not read many memoirs I was very entertained by this book, but also quite concerned and terrified.
At first I saw the title and initially thoughts that the word 'memoir' was in a metaphorical sense, but it wasn't until I started to read that I realised that the story was about a real life experience. After finishing the book I was in shock.
The memoir is about how the writers were being used and experimented on with secret internal weapons, and how they had to change every aspect of they're lives in survival. Both brother and sister, are brought under the same roof to oppose and defend themselves from the dangers they both faced.
I'm going to try and keep this review without as many spoilers as possible.
The book is split with different chapters from both Stephen and Cynthia, whereby they give an account from what happened to them from their point of view, until they come together in Stephen's apartment in London. I enjoyed reading the different accounts and stories, hearing what happened to them first separately, then letting the two separate point of views merge into one. However there were some repetition of information that wasn't so necessary as the reader already knew what they were describing. I really liked the light hearted and sarcastic language that they authors used, it was simple but effective in keeping the tone humorous and not too tense for long periods.
When finishing the last page I had profound sense of clarification of how dangerous and unknown the world around us is. Before reading the book I had no idea what internal weapons had even been developed, and thought it was something that would be released long after I would be dead, it's quite frightening to think that people who are practically mercenaries have ahold of such weapons. They were from the authors description to look like guns, but pointed rays that would take over the subconscious part of the brain, and they would have surrendered completely in the power of this stranger, and they didn't realise before there bodies started to act strangely. - However I did have some arising questions when reading over how the writers were experimented on daily, which were - Why would normal people, living normal lives be selected out of the millions to be the experiments to such weapons? What made them so different to other people? They must have done something to provoke such inhuman torture... - But I didn't find any answers to my questions, there are some holes within the story, things that future readers would like to know. But perhaps the authors had a good reason to leave the readers with these questions, and maybe it's not safe to give the identity and reason behind what those awful people did to them.I am in no such way accusing the writers that the story is in anyway untrue, but there had to be some rational explanation to why a simple artist and translator were being isolated from the world.
I liked that they seemed to discover a kind of spirituality, not in a religious sense, but in a second-sense sort. Cynthia said often in the book that before her brother and her where about to be poisoned she would get a warning from her guardian angel, which is amazing to think that amongst all the danger she and her brother were in, they found some hope and strength to that she see a peaceful future, where they were left un-harrassed and living normal lives.
If you would like to read a true life story and another more terrifying revelation of the society we live in, then I defiantly recommend Memoirs Of A Lab Rat.
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