Reading Review – SP – Ghettos: 2050

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How are you today? I hope you're in good shape and having a good time. Today, reading may be a little harder for some readers and yet, it resonates with the life we live now. I'll leave you with the summary and the opinion!

2050. A Republic on its knees.
The "lost neighbourhoods" have become lawless zones, given over to the law of arms. Traffickers and criminals settle scores in the middle of the street, while the police abandon the field, unable to contain the escalation of violence. In the midst of this chaos, the Republic is faltering, and life is no longer worth anything.
Faced with the historic downgrade of France's rating, the newly elected president, Renan Mariveaux, is far from imagining that this event is just an unimportant anecdote, compared to those that await it. All it takes is a small spark for the whole country to be set ablaze. So, when his own wife whispers an unexpected idea to him, he decides to shake up all the rules. Corsica is spared from all this violence. The next to occupy the Place Beauvau will therefore be Corsica.
Ghjuvanni Mozziconacci, President of the "Femu a Corsica" party and President of the Corsican Assembly since 2047, is far from suspecting that he will be the first politician to propose a crazy idea: to release the biggest kingpins who are in prison to restore order, in exchange for their freedom. But will the bosses agree to change sides?
Between hope and disillusionment, Mozziconacci will have to choose: become the saviour of a country on the brink of the abyss or the architect of its collapse.
Sometimes, to defeat evil, you have to fight fire with fire.

Like a muffled cry from the future, Ghettos: 2050 opened up to me like a distorted mirror of our present. Chaperon's writing is direct, almost sharp, and yet charged with a form of raw poetry. This novel is an electroshock, a warning, a work that dares to shake things up. He grabbed me from the first pages by his way of installing a malaise that is never gratuitous, always meaningful.

The chapters are short, incisive, rhythmic like heartbeats in a race towards collapse. It's this format that allowed me to stay hooked, to let myself be carried away in this vision of the world that sends shivers down my spine but that sadly rings true. Each scene, each interaction seemed to me to be weighed, like a piece of a puzzle that is assembled with anguish but fascination.

There is a disturbing social lucidity in this novel. The treatment of inequalities, violence, loss of bearings, is realistically harsh. And yet, we are never in excess. That's what I liked: the border is thin, but it's there. There are moments of extreme tension, almost unbearable, but also suspended moments, as if the author allowed us to breathe before diving back in.

This is not an action novel, and those who expect explosions or chases from it might miss the point. Here, we are in the slow tension, in reflection, in what some have described as a "punchy dystopia". I would add: a dystopia that hurts because it resonates. And that's precisely what I liked. It's not a comfortable read. But it is a necessary reading.

The characters, without being numerous, are strong. We feel their anger, their doubts, their powerlessness. They are the beating heart of this story, caught in a world that is beyond them but that they fully embody. Far from clichés or hero formats, we are dealing here with human beings with their flaws, and this is what makes them powerful.

Some passages left me a little more perplexed – perhaps a certain density in the messages, a feeling sometimes of being guided where I would have preferred to feel more than to understand. But this did not slow down my reading, on the contrary, it invited me to reread certain passages to capture their richness.

In short, Ghettos: 2050 was for me a striking read, a dive into a sharp vision of our possible future. He touched me, pushed me, questioned me. This kind of story that you don't forget once the last page is turned.

And you, will you dare to dive into it?