The Similars by Rebecca Hanover – ⭐⭐⭐
Recommended: only if it sounds particularly interesting to you
For fans of an ethically charged question on rights future people (‘people’?) may or may not have, conspiracies, or your fairly standard sci-fi ya combo
Summary, from Goodreads:
The Similars are all anyone can talk about at the elite Darkwood Academy. Who are these six clones? What are the odds that all of them would be Darkwood students? Who is the madman who broke the law to create them? Emma couldn’t care less. Her best friend, Oliver, died over the summer and all she can think about is how to get through her junior year without him. Then she comes face-to-heartbreaking-face with Levi—Oliver’s exact DNA replica and one of the Similars.
Emma wants nothing to do with the Similars, but she keeps getting pulled deeper and deeper into their clique, uncovering dark truths about the clones and her prestigious school along the way. But no one can be trusted…not even the boy she is falling for who has Oliver’s face.
Thoughts:
When I started this book, I got sucked into the premise so quickly and read it every second I got. I was fascinated with the complexities introduced with cloning, when the clones were technically illegal just by their existence. (Just typing that made me think of Trevor Noah’s memoir Born a Crime — truly fantastic, by the way.)
Then I abruptly got bored about 80% of the way in, which should have been right around the big exciting part. Maybe the shine wore off, and I realized the characters weren’t that interesting. I definitely won’t be reading the second one in a hurry, if ever, since the switch of two of the main leads does not appeal to me. Having a new character who I don’t know much about and am not that interested in learning about, right when I was just starting to like the other one, is not really sucking me in. Scott Westerfield managed to make it work in Pretties, but that series is also masterful.
My Book Joy 