To say that this book was good would be a complete understatement. It was honestly PHENOMENAL. It completely took my breath away and left me speechless and flabbergasted at the jaw-dropping ending. I actually said, “What da fakkk.”

The synopsis of this particular book is pretty self-explanatory. So I won’t bore you by being redundant at least I’ll try not to.. Elysia is a sixteen year old girl who was bio-chemically engineered. She is an exact replica of her First (a human girl who died and made it possible for Elysia to be created). She is made to serve and once she is bought by the Barron’s, Elysia’s sole purpose is to be a sort of replacement for Astrid, the oldest child in the family who left the island of Demesne for University.

At first everything is grand. Elysia is pampered and gets along with Mrs. Barron’s children, Ivan and Liesel. From this interaction with the family, household, and friends – Elysia begins to feel, which should be impossible since she is a clone, unable to be able to feel like a human. But she does and as the story progresses we learn that Elysia isn’t the only one, which leads to the jarring and parallel discontent that I could only compare it to the African American’s wish to be free from being deemed as slaves.

At first, the book to me was slow. There was a lot of world-building involve that I thought dragged. The first day when I picked up the book I honestly wanted to stop reading it all together. But I told myself to keep reading the first chapters because it might get better. I’m so glad that I did. The book picked up tremendously as we followed Elysia through her journey, leaving me completely enthralled and unhinged.

I’ve never read anything similar as Beta in the sci-fi world, which is a major plus in my book. Rachel Cohn gets unique and creative points from moi. It was also brilliantly written as Elysia’s narration slowly transforms from naivety to logical questioning of her existence. It’s done gradually where we see Elysia grow without it being out of blue and unrealistic.

There is just so much about this book that I can go on and on about. There’s a little of everything in the novel. There is, of course, sci-fi – as the setting takes place in the future and where it’s medically advanced to be able to make clones of off people who have died in order for them to be servants to humans. It also falls into the dystopian category because even though the island may seem to be “perfect” it is far from it. Finally, there is romance, humor, action, and unbelievable twists that you will not see coming until the very page or maybe it was just me because yano I am clueless. Lastly, people are not who they seem. You may think you know them…and then, well….THEY DO THINGS THAT ARE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY NOT RIGHT.

Ahh and like I said, THE ENDING COMPLETELY LEFT ME SPEECHLESS. I COULDN’T EVEN PROCESS THE LAST TWO SENTENCES. It was a major twist that I didn’t see coming. I felt like I was hit by a bulldozer.

All in all, I would recommend it to anyone who loves reading and is looking for a new and unique sci-fi dystopian YA novel. It is definitely one of my favorite sci-fi reads so far this year!