Replica

This book drew my attention when I saw it in my local Waterstones branch, I picked it up and was immediately perplexed by the way the print copy of this book had matching covers front and back yet one had the name Lyra on the front and the other the name Gemma. If you turned the book over and upside down you seemed to get a different book and the text when you reached half way would flip over and you'd need to flip the book the other way to read the other half.

Written by Lauren Oliver this book is a different concept, it is two stories in one. Each a story of a young girl that when read separately make sense but when read together give you the full picture and detail of their stories when they merge as one. You have the choice, you can either read Lyra's story first then Gemma's or vice versa or you can do what I chose to do and read a chapter of each girls stories and keep jumping between them both throughout.

In Lyra's story we meet a young girl, living in a facility on an island off the coast of Florida she has been bred, she is a clone or as they are called in the facility a replica. The facility is full of replicas, bred from human DNA they are classed as less than human, born and herded into batches and branded by colours they live in dormitories and get little human contact and no love or stimulation. Replica's are segregated by sex and often whole batches of them will become sick and die. Lyra is known as number 24. One day she meets number 74, a male replica who has tried to escape the island and suddenly a cataclysmic event will force them off the island together and into the real world. How will they cope in a world they don't understand and with people chasing them down before the world learns about what they are.

In Gemma's story, we meet a teen living with her strict parents, her father is head of a pharmaceutical company and her mom suffers from issues with her nerves. Gemma has been sick for parts of her life and has vague memories of a hospital facility somewhere but she doesn't think about it too much as she struggles with the normal high school issues of low self-confidence and popularity issues. A few days before she's due to go to Florida on Spring Break a man approaches her in a gas station car park and demands to learn what she knows about ‘Haven', driven by memories from her past she begins to investigate this strange place and eventually to try and visit the facility itself. It will take her on a road trip to Florida where she will learn about the conspiracy theories that exist about an island off the coast.

This book started really well, it was immediately engaging and I liked both main characters equally. Lyra had the innocence of someone who has never experienced human love and interaction and the wonder of a child who knows there is much about her world she doesn't understand. Gemma is the quintessential child who wants to please, she tows the family line and never questions until she is forced out of her comfort zone and forced to face the truth about her father's job.

This book is going to be part of an ongoing series so this book does answer some questions that we seek from the start of the story but it does clearly leave us lots of blanks that will form the basis of subsequent stories of the two girls. This isn't a nice fluffy read, it's got some dark moments and the story is full of action in the second half. It is a really quick read too, I think because I read chapter around and was flipping back and forth through the pages I didn't really realise just how far I'd gotten until it was done, it's deceptive that way. We really only get around 18 chapters from each girls perspective and they fly by very quickly so that added to the aspect of not feeling the story had completed.

It was a combination of the movie The Island and Humans the TV show but perhaps not quite so sophisticated in its storytelling. It was a good read but it wasn't one that I'd say blew me away, it was engaging and interesting but I'm not sure it would be one I'd immediately recommend to friends.

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Replica

The only life Lyra knows is the one locked behind Haven's walls. There are endless rounds of needles and medicine, tests and doctors. She lives with other replicas, humans created from the cells of their duplicates. To watch another replica die is just another day to Lyra. When the chance to escape arises, Lyra is thrown into a world she has no idea how to survive.

Gemma lives a sheltered life, with parents who are afraid she is made of glass. As a child, she endured countless surgeries to stay healthy, and grow into the young woman she is now. She's always been annoyed but understanding with her parents. Until Gemma begins to noise around in her father's business and discovers a place called Haven.

I loved the dual stories told in Replica and the writing style Lauren Oliver chose. Readers can read the two stories in whatever order they want. But, instead of alternating chapters between the two characters I read Lyra first and then Gemma. Lyra's story carried more of a sci-fi feel as she was brought up in the lab. A large part of her story revolved around what happened in Haven, and how different she felt being a replica. She was raised to believe she was an object; she wasn't an actual person.

Gemma's storyline was more of a typical young adult novel. She's an insecure girl, sheltered and lonely. She's learning about boys, and how she's beginning to see them differently and is embarrassed about it. She is a bit vain, which did at times annoy me, but she grew up being teased for her surgery scars and being overweight. Of course, she sees the world in from the eyes of someone who thinks being skinny and pretty is better.

While there was some overlap in dialogue, which is to be expected, Lauren Oliver did a great job of keeping the two characters separate. They ran parallel stories that came together in moments of tension and helped propel the story forward. Even the way the two characters were raised ran parallel and created a great contrast to one another. This was another great book from Lauren Oliver, and I can't wait to read the sequel duology.