Review-Vitro

About a year and a half ago I read a debut I was very pleased with, both in terms of plot originality and as something to think about.  Khoury has done it again in her sophomore novel, and I almost feel like this one was better than her first.  Again Khoury has fused YA fiction and science together, along with moral questions that revolve around the most basic "just because we can doesn't mean we should" idea that is currently a big issue in the scientific world.  I enjoyed the triple POV that Khoury decided to use, along with the three people she decided to use as those POVs.  I would have been interested to see into the head of one other character in the book, but I do understand why she decided to leave that character's POV out of the story.  The one thing I had a little trouble with was the fact that some of the chapters seemed to overlap with one another, happening at the same time as something that had just happened (I think) and that confused me.  Don't get me wrong I love the double perspective, but when there was so much happening I found myself going "okay, I get it, I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!" which I guess is the point, but still.  That being said I think that everything else in the book was really strong.  There were some twists and turns, although I did see most if not all of them coming, and the little connection to her first novel made me smile.  I could have done with maybe a wee bit more romance, but given the circumstances of the novel it might have hindered the plot and stood out so while it would have been nice it wouldn't necessarily have been the right call or moved the story forward any.  Khoury did put in an fair number of moral and ethical questions into this book, which is something that isn't always done in YA fiction, but in terms of sci-fi it's a big thing that's included because of the plot.  All in all I was really pleased with this novel and hope that Khoury continues writing novels like this one, set in the same world and focusing on the same multi-million-dollar company but with different...science projects.  Fans of Khoury's fist novel will enjoy this one, and if you're a fan of classic sci-fi plots with real-life connections I would also suggest this book to you.

January 14, 2014

4.5/5 dust spirits

 *Thanks to Razor Bill for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.