I've finally finished Cosmopolis and started on Aimee Bender's An Invisible Sign of my Own. This book starts with a story the protagonist was told by her father. It's about a kingdom where everyone found eternal life, and the population got overcrowded cos no one died. So there came a decree that each household would volunteer someone to die for martyrdom. And people were curious about dying since no one had experienced it. They wondered if it was like taking a trip to somewhere exotic and well, just staying there. So when it came time for the great sacrifice, every household volunteered someone but one household couldn't decide. This household wanted to volunteer every member. This idea was vetoed by the rest, and so they decided to offer a piece of each of their bodies, to make up one person. The father would give up his nose and arm, the mother her leg, the daughter her ear and the son his foot and hair. Everyone agreed and this was what they did. But then afterwards, no one could look at this family cos they were no longer whole, and they felt compelled to move to another town where no one knew what they looked like before.

This was a bedtime story to the protagonist on her 10th birthday, and this story is what made me buy the book.