The Stellow Project: Review

It was suppose to be a fun weekend at the cabin with her sister and best friend, but on the drive up Lilah realizes something is wrong. The wind is getting worse, hail the size of soccer balls begins to fall, and cell service is out. The three girls continue to drive up the mountain to the cabin, knowing that there is a landline and that Lilah’s father is on his way. Only he isn’t.

Calls home are spotty at best, and the girls discover that not only has New York City practically been leveled (along with much of the country), but Lilah’s dad is being blamed.

Mr. Swellows is a well know environmentalist, but the past years have turned him from scientific authority into a crazed end on times environmental terrorist. He is the one who disabled weather satellites, making sure that no one knew of the catastrophic events heading for the cities. It’s is fault that thousands of people are dead, and as it turns out it is his fault that Lilah is sick.

Ever since Lilah can remember, she has trouble breathing. Pills and surgeries have plagued her life, at seventeen she has never been allowed to stay home alone in case she stops breathing and has to be resuscitated and taken to the hospital. Her father has kept her inside their houses, in climate controlled and pressurized rooms. He made her sick, she was his control group for medicines, theories and environmental tests.

After Lilah’s best friend deserts her and informs on her to the FBI, Lilah and her sister are taken in by a group of scientists who know more about her and her family then Lilah knows about herself. Befriending the lead scientists son, Lilah begins to investigate. Files on her and her mother are found behind locked cabinets. Pills in different dosages and animal testing are being done behind doors. Experiments are running rampant and Lilah doesn’t know what to do, or what any of it means. Lilah has to decide if some mistakes and experiments are worth it in the search for the greater good of humanity and the planet. But how much can she tolerate? And what are her father and the secretive scientists going to allow her to see before the Lilah experiment is killed off for the greater good of the research?

The book was okay. I think that the premise is good, but I didn’t like the main character. She was whiney and I felt no real connection to her. It also felt like it ended rather abruptly, almost like the author wrote 300 pages and then decided that was enough so she quickly finished the novel. At the moment there doesn’t appear to be a sequel, but the way the book ended leaves it open to have one in the future.

Uninvited (book 1) by Sophie Jordan

Science has isolated the kill gene. Slowly but surly the United State is rolling out mandatory testing for HTS, Homicidal Tendency Syndrome. People found to have the gene for HTS are being separated in society and marked. Cities are being locked down and quarantined, images on TV show murder and destruction always at the hands of those that have tested positive for HTS.

Davy never really thought about it though, other than how scary those people on TV were, and knowing to avoid the big cities. Her life is perfect; she has perfect grades and the boyfriend and social calendar to rival a rock star. Not to mention, she is a musical prodigy who received acceptance to Julliard. Everything is going the way it should for a spoiled girl; that is until she arrives home one night to strangers and her parents waiting for her.

Weeks earlier, her private school has tested all the children, and Davy’s test had come up positive. It doesn’t matter that she is sweet and mild mannered, one day she will be a killer. After all, it is written into her DNA, there is no escaping nature. Suddenly Davy finds herself isolated and alone, her boyfriend and friends dump her, her new school is practically a cage where the man in charge takes sexual advantage of the girls, even her parents seem to be scared on her.

The country is becoming worse, riots and fear are fueling hatred and causing the government to push through new legislation against the carries of HTS. After tensions amass to extraordinary heights, causing Davy to stay home for days on end without reprieve, news breaks that every carrier is being rounded up and taken to detention camps. Davy and her family have no choice but to wait, wait for the government to come and collect her.

But that isn’t what happens. There is another program for carriers, a program that only fifty people qualified for. It is a training camp for carriers, carriers who show abilities to be molded into government spies and assassins. Somehow Davy has qualified, and if she survives training and does everything they tell her to she might one day have a life again. A life without an imprint and a life full of purpose, she can be important again. That is only if she can survive and pass the training, and once at the camp, Davy isn’t sure it is something she wants. Turning into a killer isn’t what she wants for her life, its what she is trying to prove she isn’t, but others at the camp really are killers and they don’t want Davy around.

This book is brilliant; it’s a subject that people talk about all the time when bad things happen. If we had the ability to isolate certain genes would it actually be helpful, what is the relationship between nature and nurture. How long can society tell you something about yourself before you start to believe and become it. This novel address’ these issues, and has a main character evolve with the story. I hated what spoiled brat Davy acted like in the beginning, but as her perfect life gets stripped away, she becomes a real person who I can relate to.

Control (Book One) by Lydia Kand

Zel was used to moving around. For over a decade her father had been moving the family every

ten months, new cities, new friends, that is if Zel ever made any friends. She was smart like her dad, but her sister had inherited all the looks and social graces. Usually when they move they have a few weeks to prepare, Zel can wrap up her biology experiments and Dyl can break up with whatever string of guys had attached themselves to her. This time, they had a day, less than to pack up and leave.

            Within moments of hitting the road, their vehicle is hit, killing Zel’s father on impact. To make matters worse, Dyl is kidnapped by a group Zel can only describe as mutants. Zel lost and alone is taken into a foster home. A foster home dedicated to fighting those who took Dyl. Both sides are interested in human, genetic mutation and focusing on how if can improve or hurt the world.

            There are secrets in the organizations, things are not black and white, and Zel’s family plays a bigger role than she ever thought possible.

            I really enjoyed this novel, I thought that is was an amazing blend of future America, with tons of science in it. The novel focused a great deal of the science of genes and biology, but I never felt that things were over my head. The author did a great job of simplifying concepts that can be difficult to understand. The pace of the book moved well (although it got a little bit slow in the middle).  I would recommend this novel to people who like a little bit more science in the fiction, fans of Uglies, Divergent, All Our Yesterdays, or any dystopian novel series that doesn’t have to do with the apocalypse.