Review: Altered by Jennifer Rush

Altered

Author: Jennifer Rush
Series: Altered, Book One
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction
Format: Hardcover, 323 pages
Release Date: January 1, 2013
Source: Borrowed from my sister, Megan

Synopsis:

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 Review:

This book was really good. It was extremely fast paced and the mystery within the plot kept me turning the pages nonstop. The book is told from the perspective of Anna, a young girl who helps her father test four boys who have been genetically altered to be super-soldiers. Anna treats the boys as if they are family and loves them all dearly, well maybe not Nick, but we’ll get to that. She tries to make their lives in captivity as comfortable as possible by bringing them books, magazines, even special shampoo if that’s what they want. She bakes cookies for them and spends a lot of time interacting with them. At the beginning of the book, Anna is quiet and meek, but as the story progresses she becomes stronger and more sure of herself. She is wrenched away from the life she has always known and deals with it as one would expect. She cries a lot, but I kind of liked that about her. It made her feel real to me.

Sam is the leader of the boys and of course Anna is in love with him. He is definitely the most mysterious, with Nick coming in a close second. He keeps to himself and I didn’t really get a sense that we knew anything about him until the very end. I assume that in the next book Jennifer Rush will develop his character more, at least I hope so. Sam’s goal throughout the book is to find out about his past by following a set of clues that he left for himself before the Branch (the organization that has altered them) wiped their memories.

Nick is definitely the second most mysterious of the boys. He is very angry and aggressive and hates Anna with a passion. He has no desire to find out about his past, although the rest of the boys continue to search for clues with Sam. Nick believes that his past isn’t digging up. I think he is afraid that the past is worse than the present and, if that’s the case, he only wants to focus on the future.

Trev is Anna’s best friend. He is always supportive of her and ready to help cheer her up. Anna leans heavily on him as her whole life is ripped apart piece by piece. He is a great friend and defends her when Nick speaks out against her. I really enjoyed his character throughout the book.

Cas was my favorite boy. He cracks jokes throughout all the chaos and kept me laughing the whole time. He provided much needed comic relief in the middle of shoot-outs and tense moments of running from the Branch. He is very easy-going and has a similar personality to Trev, with the exception of his comedic genius.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The only thing I didn’t like was when they first escaped, they got food and gas immediately after escaping, but there was no explanation of where the money came from. They had been locked in their glass cells in the lab, never let out so I just didn’t see where the money could have possibly come from. But that is my only complaint, small and mostly insignificant. I loved how much action there was, how fast-paced the story was, and how intriguing it was. There were several twists that shocked me and broke my heart. I can’t wait to read the second one, Erased, which comes out January 7, 2014. This didn’t end on a super horrifying cliffhanger, but I am still excited to see where the story goes next. Happy reading all!

Click here to purchase this book!