Description
For as long as Rennie Parker’s been alive, his parents have fought—about money, about life, but mostly about him being the biggest mistake of their lives. His half-brother, Blaine Colton, seems to have landed a sweet deal with his adoptive family, and Rennie can’t help being envious. When a night of domestic turmoil lands his mother in hospital and his father a thread away from arrest, Rennie gets his wish of staying with his brother’s family—but that’s not before he witnesses a stranger with bionic powers unearthing a high-tech vault in his backyard.
Determined to discover the purpose ofthe stranger’s visit, he manages to secure the top-secret contents of the vault with inexplicable links to his brother. This lands him in a world of pain with a time gap he can’t explain, and an accusation of arson. When the one person he trusts, Blaine, turn against him, Rennie has to figure things out on his own. Left with a video of glowing hands, part of a dead scientist’s lecture on immortality, terrifying dreams about misused children and his fragmented memories, he must piece these clues together before—? If only he could remember.
Review
Rennie Parker has not had an easy life. He has been constantly told that he was a mistake, and has lived in poverty with his drug addicted mother and his occassionally present abusive father. Rennie feels alone in the world and unloved. Plus he's had some run-ins with the law that have seen him spend time in juvenile detention.
His half-brother Blaine, on the hand, was adopted at birth by a loving and supporting family, and has a life that Rennie can only dream of.
But not everything is as it seems in Blaine’s life, and Rennie finds himself caught up in a dangerous world of cyborgs, clones and strangers with bionic powers. But this is just the start ... Rennie becomes a valuable commodity for those on the ultimate path to controlling and changing the course of human life.
The story draws you in and you will find yourself willing Rennie to use all his street and computer smarts to save his own life, and that of his family.
This is a full-on, engrossing science fiction story, set in a realistic scenario, with themes of family violence, substance abuse, youth crime, mind control, complex bioethics including violence, as well as challenging family relationships, self-acceptance and self-worth. It will be best suited to those inmiddle to upper secondary.
Teacher Notes prepared by the publisher are available on our website for this title.
Reviewed by Sam
