Stay Younger Longer (Terrafide #3) by Ryan Hyatt

*** This book was provided to me by the author for a fair and honest review ***

Mr. Hyatt appears to love to wear his readers out, and Stay Younger Longer is absolute proof of it.

Dick White is a journalist in the midst of an ongoing personal crisis who, despite copious idiocy and self-medication, has been given the opportunity to break open the story of the century: the secrets behind the anti-aging drug Euphoria.

It turns out, though, that Dick isn’t the only one interested in the “so-called” cure that has been hinted at. I’d love to say that shenanigans ensue, but that is horribly misleading. Basically, Dick gets himself in and out of a ton of crazy situations and barely escapes with his life a lot.

In context with the rest of the Terrafide books, I was glad that I read this one last. Unconventionally, Mr. Hyatt released these books in semi-sideways order. Stay Younger Longer came first, followed by Rise of the Liberators which outlines a bit of what is going on in regards to the military aspect of things, and then The Psychic’s Memoirs which really puts everything in perspective as to how this all got started. I accidentally read the series in story chronological order and it was very enlightening to see the progression. There are a few instances of story weirdness, but the subject matter more than makes up for any anomalies.

As I have said in previous reviews, Mr. Hyatt is masterful at story and character building. You really want to like Dick White and his semi-dystopian Los Angeles, but you also really don’t want to like him. Dick is an anti-hero who kind of tries to do the right thing, but is more driven by his vices than his sense of righteousness. There are large swaths of this story that deal with Dick just getting into bad social situations that may seem extraneous, but I think they are there to show us just where his brain is really at.

The Los Angeles of Stay Younger Longer is a dystopian future that I really can see us achieving easily. There are a few fantastical elements, but the majority of it is just downright believable. The fact that this book was released in 2015, and some of the elements that are “true” today, six years later, is oddly prescient.

Bottom line, read this book. Hell, read the entire series. I really hope there is another book coming to help fill in some of the questions I have, but I’m happy with where I’m currently at.