Book Review: Origin by Jessica Khoury

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ARC, book, book review, bookitsch, dystopia, goodreads, jessica khoury, origin, science fiction, young adult

Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home—and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.

Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia’s origin—a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.

The premise of Origin is quite interesting, and is what originally compelled me to enter the ARC giveaway I won for this book. Pia is a modern scientific success, she’s the first immortal to be churned out of a remote laboratory in a rain forest in South America. She’s lived a coddled life by those scientists around her, because of course she’s the prize and joy of all the hard work they’ve been putting in day in and day out. Though she first comes off as a bit spoiled, we come to see that not all is as wonderful as Pia first describes to the reader.

I particularly liked that she really and truly loves the laboratory she’s grown up in, and has come to call home. That all changes when a newcomer arrives and throws her well-balanced world off kilter.

I really wanted to enjoy this book much more than I did, but I can’t say that I loved this read. It was interesting of course, but at times the read wasn’t as easy flowing as I like. Also I was a bit disappointed by her immortal…abilities. I don’t want to spoil anything so that is all I will say on that topic. But I felt that there could have been more to what she was able to do. Other than immortality, for the most part, Pia is a normal teenager; aside from the fact that she’s grown up around scientists as oppose to kids her own age.

Her home is full of adults, who keep nothing but secrets from her, and I did enjoy finally learning about all of the mysterious secrets the adults had been keeping to themselves. All in all it was an interesting read, yet not enthralling enough to keep me turning that page late into the night. It’s a good read, but you won’t get fully absorbed in it until much later in the story.

Origin by Jessica Khoury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars