Unfinished

Review of Unfinished Kendra C. Highley

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: In a world where genetically-engineered humans serve as slave labor to “real” humans, ten-year-old Quinn is an anomaly. Designed with superior intelligence and physical attributes, he lives and trains at Maren DeGaul’s lakeside mansion, being readied for some mysterious purpose as dictated by Precipice Corporation. Despite the comfortable surroundings, Quinn is frequently pushed to his limits by his human guardians, often learning lessons in pain and loneliness.
That all changes the day they introduce him to a new artificial, one who is both his equal and his soul-mate. But when Maren decides the new artificial is flawed and should be decommissioned, it’s up to Quinn to find a way to save his only friend.

My Review: 

For this week’s offering we delve into the world of Sci-Fi. Our main character is a young boy named Quinn. He is not a regular human but rather something called an artificial. I didn’t really fully understand what that meant because the context made it seem like it did not mean a robot but rather some kind of genetically-altered person. 

The people that he stays with then go on to create some other kind of genetically-altered person who is supposedly made just for him. His own personal Eve I guess except that her name is Lexa, a name Quinn has chosen for her. The book’s plot revolves around the adventures of Quinn and Alex as they attempt to break out of their environment—both literally and figuratively and attempt to find new lives that help them take full advantage of their potential.

My ranking on this one is simple. If I were using a five star rating, I would give this one a three out of five stars overall. 

The story is compelling but at the beginning it was hard to follow. Right after the chapter headings on most of the chapters it would read: Seven years ago. My first thought was, why not just wait till you get to that point in the story where it is the present and then put seven years later, just to indicate that seven years has passed? It makes more sense to me. But then the author kept doing that on almost every chapter and I was getting a little confused wondering if it was seven years before or after the last chapter. Finally there was a chapter in present day and if I remember correctly it had the heading “seven years later.” A bit strange but also convinces me that I was right and that the author should probably take out all those seven years ago headings.

The story itself was interesting though. It also became easier to follow after I started ignoring all of those headings. And now that we have travelled with the characters to the present point, the author asks us to take a journey with them to the next novel. It could be interesting but I am still not sure that I want to join them. For now, I have lots of other books to read though so I guess I best get cracking.

Contains:  mild swearing and elements of torture