Book 1 in the Beta series
AUTHOR: Rachel Cohn
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian, clones, experiments
PREMISE: Elysia is a clone in a paradise world where clones are for working all the small jobs that humans don't care for.
MY REVIEW: I have never read anything that Rachel Cohn has written on her own. I read Nick and Norah back in the day but she co-wrote that with David Levithan and while I found Nick and Norah enjoyable (and totally rec the movie which is adorable, though mostly because of Kat Dennings) I didn't think it was the be all end all of books so I was never really interested in reading anything else by her (or Levithan, though I have read Boy Meets Boy which was cute as well). After this...I probably won't be reading anything by her again.
Honestly, this is probably one of those cases where there's nothing really WRONG with the book story-wise/writing wise. It gets the job done, and I suppose for the more willing-to-let-things-go reader, it could be entertaining. But this book just had all the things that tends to annoy me. For one, it's amazingly dull. Like there's literally nothing happening till maybe the middle and I'm not sure if I can even count her and her honey declaring true love as something happening. Then the world building just...makes no sense. I understand suspension of disbelief is a thing that is helpful and usually I can let it go. I mean I love Hunger Games but come on, that world will never happen. But Collins gives me enough info and does things logically enough that I'm able to believe it for the duration of reading it. This one just utterly failed to make me believe any of this. It just didn't make any sense. On top of THAT, Elysia was a dull heroine who was passive to the point of ridiculousness, rape was used as a plot point and later the result of the rape (a baby) turned into a anti-abortion message (yes, I'm Pro-Choice. I have no problem with people who are Pro-Life but I have a HUGE problem with forcing a woman who was raped to have her rapist's baby because "it's special"), there's insta-love, slut-shaming, and did I mention it was dull for the first half of the book?
Again, some readers may enjoy this more then I do. I'm sure it's been established that I can be picky with books and especially with Dystopians. But this was definitely not for me.
WHO SHOULD READ: Rachel Cohn fans, those not bothered by sloppy world building in dystopians
MY RATING: Two out of Five eye-twitching induced plots
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