Handmaid's Tale meets Black Mirror. What happens when the world's fertility rate drops to almost zero? When child protective services can issue warnings to remove your child permanently if you are deemed an unfit parent? When most children actually get extracted before they are one, but women get financially penalised if they stop trying to conceive? There's nothing wrong with the book; it's well-written, interesting, with a good twist, but it left me wanting it to be better. The bleak but realistic ending didn't help. I need a good fluffy book after this. ( )

Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen is a bleak look at a future where women can no longer have children naturally. They have to go through a process called induction in which they have to take a regimen of drugs to help their bodies be able to sustain a pregnancy. For women who decide not to have children, well they are considered "outs" having opted out of this process. Women and their partners who decide to go through the process are paid more, have better housing and obviously valued more.
But once you have a baby, the "governments" involvement doesn't end there. Enforcers, people who watch you raise your child and give you IPS (infractions) for doing anything they consider wrong. After so many IPS they take your baby.
This story is about two sisters, one who wants and has a child and the other who is an "out". The story is told back and forth between the present "Now" and the past "Then". Its a very dark look at the choices women make and the lengths that they will go to keep their children.
I really enjoyed the book, it definitely had Handmaid's Tale (by Margaret Atwood) vibe about it as well as Vox by Christina Dalcher. ( )