By Jessica Khoury
Pia has always known her destiny. She is meant to start a new race, a line of descendants who will bring an end to death. She has been bred for no other purpose, genetically engineered to be immortal and raised by a team of scientists in a secret compound hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest. Now those scientists have begun to challenge her, with the goal of training her to carry on their dangerous work.
For as long as she can remember, Pia’s greatest desire has been to fulfill their expectations. But then one night she finds a hole in the impenetrable fence that surrounds her sterile home. Free in the jungle for the first time in her life, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Unable to resist, she continues sneaking out to see him. As they fall in love, they begin to piece together the truth about Pia’s origin—a truth with nothing less than deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.
I have been meaning to read this book since it first came out. Recently, I found myself on vacation without another book to read so I opened up the Kindle App on my phone to see what was in there. I forgot that I had purchased the Kindle version of this book a long time ago.
I thought reading on the small screen of my phone was really going to suck.
It didn’t, because I was reading this book. In fact, I think the small screen helped me whip through it so quickly. I kept flipping the tiny pages and not realizing how much I’d read or how far I had to go.
This was a unique and interesting book. I figured out the plot twist right away (something I never do), but I still found it very enjoyable. I don’t think the plot twist was obvious. I’ve just read too many of these human improvement sci-fi books. It’s one of my very favorite topics.
The relationship between Pia and Eio was so sweet, if a little rushed. They fall madly, heart-wrenchingly in love after like a week. It’s probably even less days than that, but I was reading too fast to keep track.
I liked Pia herself. Despite being a character who tells us right from the beginning that everyone has always told her she’s “Perfect” she’s not too annoying. Obviously once she starts to grow as a character, she gets even less annoying. But I’ve certainly seen main characters that were way more self-involved than Pia without being “Perfect Pia”.
I highly recommend reading this book. It definitely makes the time go by quickly~
