Altered
Author: Jennifer Rush
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
Publication Date: January 1, 2013
Pages: 336
Series: Altered, book one
Source: Requested ARC from publisher
About the Book: When you can’t trust yourself, who can you believe?
Everything about Anna’s life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who’s stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them.
Anna is torn between following Sam or staying behind in the safety of her everyday life. But her father pushes her to flee, making Sam promise to keep her away from the Branch, at all costs. There’s just one problem. Sam and the boys don’t remember anything before living in the lab—not even their true identities.
Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away.
My Thoughts: This was one of those books that I sat down to read and the next thing I knew it was a couple hours later and I was turning the last page! I read it straight through simply because I just didn’t want to stop. When I closed the back cover I was all, “Ohmystars. I loved it. Such a good ending.” But I was also like, “AHHHHHHHHH! I need more now!!!!” I am such a greedy reader!
I was so caught up in the unfolding of the story that I wrote very few notes. One thing I did make a point to jot down was how much I loved Anna and “the boys.” This book is very much a thriller. The characters are understandably shrouded in mystery. This made every little thing we learn about Nick, Cas, Trev, and Sam that much more interesting to me. Being genetically altered is about the only thing they have in common. After reading the book I kept seeing things in my everyday life and thinking, “That’s so Cas!” or “Oh man. Nick would have a field day with that.” The little details that we learn about them made them so real, even if we lack knowledge of the “big” things.
Of course the story itself is engrossing. Genetically altered teens. In the basement of a rural farm house. What. The. Heck. With no memory of life before the lab “the boys” don’t know who they are or why (or even really how) they were altered. The reader follows along with Anna and company as they try to stay one step ahead of “the Branch” and figure out the keys to their past and future.
Altered snagged my attention and took me on a roller-coaster of unexpected twists and turns. The story never lost momentum! I was left completely satisfied with the way this leg of the journey ended, but begging to find out what happens next. I certainly haven’t had enough of Anna, Nick, Cas, Trev, or Sam.
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