fairy skeletons.: Book Review: Beta by Rachel Cohn

Elysia is created in a laboratory, born as a sixteen-year-old girl, an empty vessel with no life experience to draw from. She is a Beta, an experimental model of a teenage clone. She was replicated from another teenage girl, who had to die in order for Elysia to exist. 

Elysia's purpose is to serve the inhabitants of Demesne, an island paradise for the wealthiest people on earth. Everything about Demesne is bioengineered for perfection. Even the air induces a strange, euphoric high, which only the island's workers--soulless clones like Elysia--are immune to.

 
At first, Elysia's life is idyllic and pampered. But she soon sees that Demesne's human residents, who should want for nothing, yearn. But for what, exactly? She also comes to realize that beneath the island's flawless exterior, there is an under-current of discontent among Demesne's worker clones. She knows she is soulless and cannot feel and should not care--so why are overpowering sensations clouding Elysia's mind? 

If anyone discovers that Elysia isn't the unfeeling clone she must pretend to be, she will suffer a fate too terrible to imagine. When her one chance at happi-ness is ripped away with breathtaking cruelty, emotions she's always had but never understood are unleashed. As rage, terror, and desire threaten to overwhelm her, Elysia must find the will to survive.

I was kind of stunned by this. Part of me wanted to say "wow" and the other part was disappointed with it.

So I'd heard of the book before and was mildly wanting to read it, so I saw it at the library and brought it home.

THE ROMANCE IS PITIFUL.

THE HEROINE IS PRETTY COOL.

THE PREMISE IS EPIC.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY LOOSE ENDS?

Aaaaannnddd.... that's pretty much it. I know I've been writing some pretty flighty reviews today, but I am mulling Finn over in my head (more on him later) and I am jittery.