*Many thanks to Tor Teen and NetGalley for allowing early access to this title - I received a free galley in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way for this review.*I started out LOVING this book. I thought the underwater setting was gorgeous and the whole setup was absolutely creepy. (I've been loving the creepy books lately.) Mother was one of the WORST antagonists I've ever read, and by worst, I mean she was horrible. (A horrible person, not a horribly written person, just to clarify.)
I really felt a lot of sympathy for Evie. It's obvious from the beginning that she's being terribly manipulated, but you don't really understand why. It's just one of those things that is, and you figure that it's always been that way.
As we progressed though and got to know Evie and her past, I started feeling like I was unable to suspend my disbelief any longer.
***THIS PART MAY GET SPOILERY IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK...PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK***
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I get that Evie has a past. I get that things are cloudy for her and that they'll only come back in bits and pieces. But seriously? You go from being pretty well mindless to sudden super ninja girl? I don't buy it. I'd absolutely buy her memory coming back like that, and I think that there is absolutely muscle memory involved. But to go from zero to sixty in about .05 seconds, NO. I don't believe that, not even for a second. Even with her conditioning, I feel like her body should have retained that training in some way, and not had it buried so incredibly deeply that it just popped up one day without any prior warning. I don't know. I'm a science geek, and this science just doesn't fly.
Let's talk about Coupling here for a second.
Ewww.
Government getting involved in reproduction is one of the few things guaranteed to spike my ire. Doing it in a yucky way is even more of a guarantee (remember how Bumped made me so mad I wanted to throw the book?). I do not like the idea of this. I do not like it at all. Plus, when you call is something icky like 'coupling', it makes me feel like somehow, the government (read: Mother) is going to be watching somehow. I don't want to think about cameras in my bedroom, or computer systems recording every movement, thank you very much.
Also, zombie people in the blocked off section?! PLEASE. I get why they were there. I understand that they were experiments gone wrong. But with as ruthless as we've been led to believe that Mother is, wouldn't she have just eliminated them entirely? Sure, she's using them for her own nefarious purposes, but it felt a little too contrived and too trendy to me. They didn't really fit with the feeling of the book, in my opinion. They felt forced and weird.
Also, I hate zombies. Put them in there without any warning, and I knock off points.
I feel bad that I started out loving this book and ended up having a serious love/hate relationship with it. I HATED Evie by the end. Really hated her. Couldn't muster a single bit of sympathy for her, and it's not even her fault.
*sigh*
I'll continue the series, only because I REALLY liked Gavin. He was the one character who felt real and awesome the entire time.
2.5 Eiffel Towers