BOOK REVIEW: Sweetness #9

This is a book review for Sweetness #9 by Stephan Eirik Clark. I am using this book for the New to You Reading Challenge hosted by Herding Cats and Burning Soup. This was the debut novel of a brand new author. 

It's 1973, and David Leveraux has landed his dream job as a Flavorist-in-Training, working in the secretive industry where chemists create the flavors for everything from the cherry in your can of soda to the butter on your popcorn. While testing a new artificial sweetener--"Sweetness #9"--he notices unusual side-effects in the laboratory rats and monkeys: anxiety, obesity, mutism, and a generalized dissatisfaction with life. David tries to blow the whistle, but he swallows it instead. Years later, Sweetness #9 is America's most popular sweetener--and David's family is changing. His wife is gaining weight, his son has stopped using verbs, and his daughter suffers from a generalized dissatisfaction with life. Is Sweetness #9 to blame, along with David's failure to stop it? Or are these just symptoms of the American condition?

I started reading this book for the Bout of Books. I know I said one of my goals was to only read books I enjoyed, but I guess that went out the window for this one. The premise was really interesting and the book started out well enough. But then it just kind of went downhill. By the time I realized how little I was enjoying the book, I felt like I had put too much time into it to mark it as DNF. It was just one of those books I felt I had to finish. Here were the positives: I enjoyed reading about David's marriage to Betty and their attempts to have a baby. The descriptions of him at the lab testing the animals was also interesting, if not a bit dry. Then it started to resemble a nonfiction book. A boring nonfiction book. I actually had to double check the genre on Goodreads. This book actually had footnotes! I hate footnotes even in nonfiction books. They distract from the story. But why did the author feel the need to place footnotes in this fiction novel? The author would go back and forth between talking about his family and talking about his work at the lab. His work at the lab would also be intermingled with actual historical events, which is why I had to make sure this was fiction.

I liked the character of David in the beginning. He thought he was doing good and he genuinely tried to make to right when he discovered the possible side effects of Sweetness #9. Then he gets forced out of the company and suddenly I hate him. His wife and children spend decades using that sweetener all the time and yet he never, ever tells them about the possible side effects. This is despite the fact that every single member of his family (himself included) are experiencing those same side effects. When his daughter begins to question it, he even tries to shut her down and tell her there is nothing wrong with the sweetener. After his concern with the side effects in the beginning, I really did not get that decision. 

I give this book a 2/5.