The One
⛰ What It's About
Relationships and dating have radically changed! The "love gene", the gene that each person shares with only just one other person, has been discovered, and DNA-based dating became the new trend. All it takes is just a mouth swab (DNA sample) and then Match Your DNA, the DNA matching company, takes it from here. This company, in return for a nominal fee, searches through its huge database for your DNA match, the person who has the same "love gene" and then connects you with each other. In other words, it connects you with THE ONE who you are made to love, THE ONE you are genetically made for. Is this discovery really a major breakthrough of humanity as it seems? Or is it a tool that dooms relationships and love?
🧠 Thoughts
Imagine a world where this service is available! Imagine the whopping number of relationships that will form when single people finally hook up and imagine the myriad of benefits may emerge from that.
‘Matches are better off financially than the un-Matched. Matched couples get bigger tax breaks, better life insurance deals, they’re more productive at work because they’re happier at home so they’re offered better jobs. For the un-Matched, suicide rates are higher, as are divorces and depression—’ ‘Both of which actually fell last year as more and more people are finding happiness with those for whom they were designed. Domestic violence against both men and women has also dropped.’
On the other hand, imagine if you're already in a relationship and then this service pops up. Wouldn't you be curious to know whether your current partner is your soulmate or not? Is he /she THE ONE you're genetically meant to be with? Why don't you take the test just to make sure? What if your partner turned out not to be your soulmate? Will you leave them for your real soultmate? From these questions we can understand the issues that this DNA-matching service poses. It may have created many relationships, but it has damaged just as many relationships as well.
‘But you’ve divided just as many people by creating a “them” and “us”: those who are loved by design and the rest who’ve been made to feel like their relationships are less worthy. Do you not see a parallel between what you’ve done and what Hitler did to the Jews? The Nazis eroded them, one by one, until they were a ravaged minority, treated like vermin. Is that your aim for un-Matched people? To gradually break them?’
In order to explore how Match Your DNA could go wrong, the book explores five unrelated recently matched couples in parallel to show how Match Your DNA affects their lives and this of course means five different plots in one book.
First, we have Mandy a woman who's getting old and is so desperate to get married and have a baby, especially after the failure of her last marriage because her husband left her for his match. Second, we follow Jade who's in love with a man living on the other side of the world. Third, we have Christopher, Britain's infamous serial killer who got matched with a cop.
‘I just don’t think I’ll ever understand it,’ said Amy. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around why someone could be compelled to take so many lives. What’s the point?’ For the challenge, Christopher thought to himself. For the fun of it. For the history books. For having the balls and ambition to decide to be a serial killer rather than fall into it or be compelled to do it. To actively choose this life and then to actively stop it. Because nobody has ever done it like this before. And because there’s no other feeling quite like being in control of someone else’s life’
Fourth, we have Nick who lives happily with his girlfriend but gets matched with a man although he isn't gay.
Really, you have no idea how it feels when you meet the one, do you? How, when you’re with them, the whole world melts away and you feel like you’ve been hit by the force of a tsunami. And how nobody else in the world exists in that moment apart from you and him.’
Fifth, we have the big boss, Ellie, who's the CEO and founder of Match your DNA company which made her a billionaire. We follow her story as she uses her own service to find THE ONE who she's meant to be with.
‘My actions have put homophobia, racism and religious hatred on the edge of extinction – a Match doesn’t recognise sexuality, colour or whatever God you choose to celebrate. It has united people of all faiths and persuasions in a way we never thought possible. Show me what you have done to make this world a less hostile place.’ Ellie laughed
We see with Mandy how Match your DNA can easily control the life of a desperate and miserable woman by making her fall in love with a dead man. With Jade, we notice how people who use this service can be easily manipulated and tricked. Furthermore, we witness the effect of such an app on a serial killer such as Christopher. Can finding his soulmate, who is a cop, change his life for the better or for the worse? With Nick, we see how this app can alter your sexual orientation. In other words, it can turn a hetersexual into a homosexual or the opposite. And with Ellie, we see the sacrifices it took to build Match your DNA which became a multibillion-dollar global company.
Conclusion
The five plots/ storylines of this book are so amazing that each one of these stories could be made into a seperate novel by itself with more expansion. The One is the best book I've read so far in 2022; it's a real page-turner and each chapter ends with a cliffhanger that kickstarts the "just one more chapter" game. Moreover, Netflix has adapted this book into a TV series (which I haven't watched yet, but I'm pretty sure the book's better as this is always the case).
