Perception

It was OK... I didn't absolutely hate it, and I think it could've been way better without all the teen romance drama, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever read.

I felt the characters lacked true feelings and some things were just there to further the plot. I don't like how it made it seem like being genetically altered made you into a brainwashed zombie. The fact that Zoe doesn't like the investigator and he turns out to be a bad guy just out of him questioning her is way too abrupt. So is the fact that she finds a piece of paper with some word in it and then just happens to see someone with that name on TV right after and that someone turns out to be involved. There are millions of people around, and there was no reason for her brother to even have that paper with nothing on it. Also, it doesn't make sense that she doesn't mourn more and try more to convince her boyfriend to help her. Or that she doesn't set out to spy on him. Or that she doesn't simply ask Noah in the first place to help her out of money. It would have made things much easier and quicker.
Many of the things they do are hard to believe and if her parents or the authorities had been truly concerned, they would have stopped them.

But more than anything what bothers me is the romance. She starts to gradually find Noah more and more attractive, but is always comparing him to her perfect boyfriend. She has no feeling of guilt to be cheating on the boyfriend, and when she finally gets to be with Noah, she keeps questioning his love for her just because he doesn't call.

Worst of all is the ending. I can take the kidnapping, the memory returning once the medication wears off, her accepting the situation. What I can't take is ex-BF finding them, and now being a cyborg (in just a few days) and having an abrupt and absurd justification for both finding and taking so long to find them. And, worst of all, how easy it was for them to just walk away after calling the meds on him. She'd just shot him and she's been looked for! They should have run as soon as ex-BF hit the ground, not stood around to see him safely taken to the hospital so he could tell on them and track them again!

3.5 stars.
If this book had been just a little more focussed on the science/dystopian part and a little less on the romance (quite instalove romance too), I think I would've really enjoyed this book. As it is, I liked it, but it wasn't that special to me. Our main character starts out as the most annoying, spoiled brat ever, but thankfully she improves rather quickly and is tolerable for most of the book.