I’ve recently finished A Better Human, the debut novel from J Donald (if you’ve watched any of the videos on my music page, he’s the other guitarist), and I was blown away by how good this is. When I read novels, I like to mentally slot them into genre tropes, and this one subverted my expectations throughout. At various times I saw influences from sources as disparate as Invincible, The Walking Dead, Horizon Zero Dawn, Stranger Things, and even Dune (which the author hadn’t read, but somehow managed to channel in his fight scenes) yet it wasn’t really any of those. This book charts its own course and keeps you engaged from page one.

Two things I really appreciated plot-wise were the world building and character development. J doesn’t infodump or rely on the classic “as you know…” conversations; instead, he drops hints and builds the world organically in a way that feels natural. On the character side, books with large casts usually make it easy to lose track of minor characters or disregard them entirely, not here. Everyone has an arc and plot relevance, and some of the most gut-wrenching revelations are reserved for characters you’d initially write off as background filler.

From a structure standpoint, the chapter arrangement is particularly effective. I’m not a fan of books that end every chapter on a cliffhanger to keep you turning pages (cough Dan Brown), but this book takes a different approach: chapters often finish on a plot revelation, then sometimes the next jumps back in time to explain what just happened or set up what’s coming. It ends up feeling natural, allows for satisfying stopping points, and makes for an almost Memento-style storytelling experience, albeit much less confusing.

All in all, highly recommend.