The Measure – Nikki Erlick

Nikki Erlick scores major points for creating a striking premise: one morning, everyone in the world over 22 years old wakes up to find a small box on their doorstep. Inside is a string — its length revealing exactly how long they’ll live.

It’s one of those concepts that practically dares you not to keep reading. And in many ways, Erlick succeeds in drawing out the big questions: Would you look at your string? Should string length be disclosed to others? Are short-stringers now villains, or targets for discrimination?

It’s easy to see how this novel has drawn comparisons to pandemic-era existentialism. The sudden global disruption, the moral panic and the clashing of science, faith and policy are all echoes of early COVID. At its best, “The Measure” is an engaging, speculative thought experiment with dystopian and spiritual undertones. But by the halfway mark, the premise begins to wear thin.

This is a novel more interested in what happens than how people feel about it. Characters react to headlines and Twitter trends more than they grapple with their inner lives. The book constantly introduces new characters — each a device to explore another facet of the string dilemma — yet very few feel like real people navigating a life-altering event.

The exception might be Ben and Amie, whose slow-burn pen pal romance becomes the emotional center of the story, even as it leans a little too hard into Romeo and Juliet territory. Nina and Maura, the queer couple at the core, are likable but underdeveloped. While I always appreciate queer representation, here it feels disappointingly surface-level.

Some subplots are so melodramatic or implausible they undercut the novel’s credibility. The military string-swapping between Jack and Javier — and the way Jack’s uncle, presidential hopeful Anthony, exploits it for political gain — stretches belief past its limit. 

Javier’s eventual death, neatly tied to yet another subplot, is brushed over with far less emotional weight than it deserves. Ironically, Anthony — ambitious, manipulative, morally corrupt — is the novel’s most complex character, though his arc slips into cliché by the end.

Erlick deserves credit for taking on an enormous amount of thematic ground: mortality, love, policy, equity, legacy and fate. But in trying to say something about everything, she doesn’t go deep enough with anything. The novel grows repetitive in its structure and overly earnest in its tone.

It often feels like the kind of book chosen for a high school curriculum less for its literary merit than its potential to spark discussion. To be fair, that might be where “The Measure” works best: not as a fantastic read, but as a prompt for conversation.

The novel has some clever ideas, and it might’ve made a knockout short story or novella, but stretched across 350 pages, it starts to fray. There’s beauty in world-building and the “what would you do?” theorizing, but not enough soul in the characters to give it lasting weight. I’m not even mad we never learned where the strings came from, because, honestly, I doubt any explanation would’ve satisfied me.

Like “The Alchemist,” another polarizing philosophical fable, it may resonate deeply with readers seeking affirmation about life, death and purpose. I just wish it had trusted us to think more and feel harder, rather than spelling everything out.

Rating (story): 3/5 stars

Rating (narration): N/A

Format: Hardcover (personal library)

Dates read: May 25 – June 15, 2025

Multi-tasking: N/A