Book Title: Freak of Nature (IFICS #1)Author: Julia Crane
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
Publication Date: February 2nd 2013
by Valknut Press
ISBN/ASIN: 162411024X
Edition Language: English
[REVIEW COPY]
Blurb:
Donate Body to Science. Check.
When seventeen-year-old Kaitlyn checked the box, she never suspected she’d have her life–and her body–stolen from her. She awakens one day in a secret laboratory to discover that her body is now half-robot and is forced to hide her own secret: that she still has human emotions and a human mind. If the scientists who made her find out, they’ll erase what remains of who she was.
Kaitlyn finds an unlikely ally in Lucas, a handsome, brilliant scientist who can’t get over the guilt he feels knowing she was once a vibrant, beautiful young woman. He never expected a science project to affect him the way she does.
As he tries to help her rediscover her past, he finds himself falling for the brave girl struggling to find her place and acceptance between the human and computer worlds.
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My Review:
I'm going to keep this one short and simple. I had requested the book mainly because of the title, which seemed interesting. Unfortunately, compared to the title, the story wasn't as much interesting.
The heroine of the story is Kaitlyn. She is a human, or was a human, until she faces a perilous accident after which the scientists use her body as an experiment and turn her into a cyborg. As a cyborg, she is not supposed to feel any humanly emotions, except that she develops a special feeling for the young scientist named Lucas.
The story this far is pretty good. Though I'm not convinced by the love part, but I get that it's almost a must-have part of a story so I could cope up with it. But I would have been more convinced if it was a little more well developed. Though Kaitlyn appears a total robot in all kinds of way possible and still she has feelings for Lucas, what is more weird and irrational is Lucas's weakness for Kaitlyn. It's not like he hadn't known Kaitlyn was a cyborg and developed feelings for her. He knew, that appears to me a little unconvincing. What I liked though, was how their feelings grew over the period of time, and not instantly after seeing each other. Of course, that's not supposed to happen as Lucas had seen Kaitlyn every day under the experiment. Though both of the characters had potentials, it was not shown up to the mark. Not only these two main characters, but other supporting characters were not developed properly as well. They seem to come and go as a bundle, without any individuality.
The narration was boring at times. I don't know why, because I like this type of alternating narratives. But I guess the writing seemed more like stream of consciousness, a literary technique I still can't develop the slightest liking for. But narrative alone could have made the story a little more interesting, had it not been this monotonous.
As for other elements, I missed the spark. You know moments, specially in sci-fi fantasy, where you are at the edge of your seat, (in my case) biting nails wondering what might happen the next moment? Well, I did not come across a moment like that while reading this, and I would have loved to see a few moments of anticipation and anxiety, really, because that's one of my weak points :D
Overall, I would say this book could have been a lot better. The plot was good, even the unconvincing parts could have been written better to make me want to believe. I feel the author has a lot of potentials, but somehow everything didn't click together in one place. I hope the next book in the series covers for this loss.
