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Feb 09, 2016Nymeria23 rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
What would happen if you go from talented to dangerous? Awed to feared? From human to animal? Life is normal for the most part in Davy's life. Actually , that's not correct. Life is <i> better </i> than normal. By a lot. Dating the most popular guy in school, being a musical prodigy on the path to Julliard, and having the best friend in the world, there's nothing bringing Davy down. Well, that's not very correct either. Davy's life turns upside when her blood tests from the fall come in. Positive. For HTS. The <i> kill gene </i> that marks her with the genetics of a potential killer. Now she's a pariah, kicked out of her prep school, out of Julliard, and out of her friend groups. Even her best friend won't talk to her and her boyfriend doesn't seem ready to stick around for the future they had planned. The people who have known her her whole life are now acting fearfully, like caged animals whenever she's around. She has become one of the people she fears the most. If that weren't bad enough, she is being sent to public school where she'll spend the whole day in 'The Cage', a room in the basement locked up with a wire fence, where they keep all the carriers. If she doesn't make friends fast, she won't last in this world, and the only carrier candidates she has are either out of the question, or too intimidating to even approach. Davy is falling apart as her life crumbles around her, but there might be one person to show her the way to be strong and survive. A person with dark golden hair and a collar of ink. Can Davy learn her way through this new life before it kills her? Can she do it while staying true to herself, or will she find out that the label that's been stuck on her is all too accurate. Is she capable of being the killer society thinks her to be? I liked this book a lot, and felt myself really connect with Davy's character. I shed angry, sympathetic tears at her unjust mistreatment, I was pissed when the people she used to trust betray her, and I was encouraging her along as she tested out her new life, as well as exploring her relationship with Sean. Davy seems to react in a very realistic way to the changes in her life, especially coming from such a privileged background, but she becomes stronger and stronger as the book goes on. When some people might have given up, Davy kept going, yes shedding some tears and having some insecurities and fears, but showing that she still has her humanity and appears to be saner and more compassionate than the people assigned to watch the carriers. (Honestly, I feel like society's view on all carriers being killers was simply enforced whenever non-carriers harassed, mistreated and put down the innocent carriers until they broke and reacted in ways that made society see them as nothing but violent. The ones who aren't violent are being treated like animals until they become animals themselves, but what this dystopian society doesn't realize, is that if you treat any sane, normal person the way these carriers were being treated, they would snap too. It's not solely nature that determines if someone will be a killer. It's also nurture. And that is what Davy's story reveals. I'm super excited for the next book!