published: 2016
pages: Lyra 236 // Gemma 284
ISBN: 978-0-06-239416-3
read: 1/14-19/2018
rating: liked it!
book: 3 of 12 (secretly aiming for 52 but happy with 30) of 2018
a strange and baffling truth: that the people we're supposed to know best can turn out to be strangers, and that near strangers can feel so much like home.
Gemma 275
Lyra’s story begins in the Haven Institute, a building tucked away on a private island off the coast of Florida that from a distance looks serene and even beautiful. But up close the locked doors, military guards, and biohazard suits tell a different story. In truth, Haven is a clandestine research facility where thousands of replicas, or human models, are born, raised, and observed. When a surprise attack is launched on Haven, two of its young experimental subjects—Lyra, or 24, and the boy known only as 72—manage to escape.
Gemma has been in and out of hospitals for as long as she can remember. A lonely teen, her life is circumscribed by home, school, and her best friend, April. But after she is nearly abducted by a stranger claiming to know her, Gemma starts to investigate her family’s past and discovers her father’s mysterious connection to the secretive Haven research facility. Hungry for answers, she travels to Florida, only to stumble upon two replicas and a completely new set of questions.
While the stories of Lyra and Gemma mirror each other, each contains breathtaking revelations critically important to the other story. Replica is an ambitious, thought-provoking masterwork.
MY THOUGHTS
the cover(s)!!!
I'd seen this book and was thiiiis close to buying it but then i found out that there was going to be a second book so i decided to wait.
the second one finally came out and i found them both at the library so win, win!
(i think this is going to be a short one)
uhm, i liked the story.
i don't know why i didn't want to read it at first but once i got into it, i didn't want to put it down.
i like the way this is written!
i like that you get 2 sides to this story from 2 different characters.
i like that you have to flip the book (although sometimes annoying) to get the other side of the story.
and i know this sounds like a 'DOY, Les' moment..but it works out so well because you get to see the cause and effect. and at times it helped me better understand certain points that i probably would have missed had i not had the other point of view. anyway, this story is well, about replicas.
Lyra is one of the thousands and well after basically a strike of luck because, wrong place, right time, she manages to get away unscathed.
Gemma is basically just rebelling against her parents and that leads her to Haven & to Lyra & 72.
(I'm really trying to be spoiler free about it but the synopsis kinda gives it away. -_-)
(but you basically find out one of the "twists" right away).
it's all about basically the government, well this group of scientist trying to do it themselves with government funding, trying to control shit and how they're creating humans for a sole purpose (won't tell ya why!) but then the truth of it all comes out and Gemma is left to deal with it alongside Lyra & 72.
and how it's up to them to fight the bad guys and figure it out themselves.
i feel like for as "strict" as her parents were, they didn't really do shit. and i also find it sooo nuts that her dad can be this all powerful mighty man with all this money but yet couldn't buy a doctor out to treat Gemma without opening their mouths about the truth.
but i mean, it worked.
i think the only thing that irked me is that for as "far fetched" as this story is with the whole government being the bad guy thing, it kinda bugged me that these kids were out here using the gps on their cellphones (hello, tracking), using their parents cards (hello, traces) and basically getting away with it all while leaving all of the trace in the world!
(i get it, its just a story but still.) but still aren't caught BY THE FUCKING BAD GUYS.
(these are some terrible bad guys. both literally and figuratively.)
i will say this, i have started the second book and.....
well, i mean, money IS money so i can see why...but i feel like they should have shoved a few extra chapters in there and called it a day....but we'll see how i really feel when I'm done with it all.
oh!, i should also note that Gemma does not shut the fuck up about her weight!!!
it was so annoying!!!
all. the. damn. time.
complaining about how she was chubby and she hated it and she UGH!
it was annoying.
(and now that i have finished the second book...wtf! how did they mix her up. so stupid!)
overall, it's a cool read it you want to read about unbelievable stuff (that tbh, might be true because the government is, well, we're fucked) that gets handled in the most unbelievable way (ugh! all the traces!).
i guess what I'm trying to say is that for as many "bombs" as there are, they're all handled kind of meh...with the exception of Jake and a few others. (waaah)
it wasn't a bad read at all.
it was just like, Harry Potter was more believable. and they had flying brooms.
iduno.
jump over for spoilers.
thanks for reading!
GEMMA
her parents have always babysat her because she was always so fragile in and out of hospitals as a baby.
her parents have always babysat her because she was always so fragile in and out of hospitals as a baby.
but in her junior year (at least i think its junior), they FINALLY agree to let her go on spring break with her best friend April.
everything is set in motion until one day, she arrives home to see someone had thrown a Frankenstein bag of rocks or some shit through her window.
being the dumb kid that she is with the shitty logic that she has, she thinks its one of the girls at school that bullies her.
her mom dismisses it and they agree to not tell her father.
and then because this motherfucker is dirtier than always used, never washed underwear, of course he finds out and Gemma overhears that its directed at him from someone from Haven and that Gemma is no longer allowed to go to Florida because its only like a few miles from where she's going.
(IMAGINE IF SHE HAD NEVER OVERHEARD THAT CONVERSATION! NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!!!!!)
(IMAGINE IF SHE HAD NEVER OVERHEARD THAT CONVERSATION! NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!!!!!)
so she doesn't go.
she stays home, goes for a walk and then gets assaulted by some random dude.
she runs back into the market and calls her mom.
homeboy mentions something to her about knowing and about Haven (hello, two and two) so she starts searching and she finds out that her father's company is involved.
she gets Pete (Perv...nickname) to drive her down to where she needs to go because he's also headed to florida.
they're like sooo close to Haven and then BOOM! explosion.
turns out someone blew haven the hell up.
(before she left and while doing her research, she finds this website that was dedicated to E V E R Y T H I N G haven)
when she's down by the shore, she runs into this kid getting all his shit deleted by cops because no photography is allowed.
turns out he is the son of the guy who ran the website and he's there to investigate.
blah blah blah.
she tells him she's looking for info and he tells her all he knows.
they are reproducing humans at haven.
they filtered foster children from a "charity helping find homes for orphans" to haven.
they
just
don't
know
why.
they decide to break into Haven since Jake knows the area so well.
and they run into Lyra & 72.
and Cassiopeia.
and Gemma loses her shit because Cassiopeia is the mirror image of Gemma.
they convince Lyra & 72 to stay with them so they can escape and they end up falling asleep in the marshes (mind you while the place just blew up and there's people all over the place looking for replicas. -_____-)
they escape and then they just piece what happens.
they go back to April's (jake, gem, lyra & 72) and they device a plan to keep them safe.
in the middle of the night she fights with April and stays outside.
in the morning she finds that Lyra & 72 ran away.
she calls Pete to pick her up and drive her to Jake's..
Jake freaks the fuck out kicks her out and so she leaves.
Gemma & Pete decide to go home.
(they're being chased so they're driving like maniacs trying to lose their tail)
they stop to get food and everything is good.
Pete goes to the car, she goes to the restroom then they meet up.
BOOM!
homeboy that approached her is holding a gun to Pete's head.
(this is another farfetched thing about this story.....this guy just happened to be standing in a hotel himself, when he sees Gemma get out the car with Pete. in another state. completely different from where he first looked for her.)
(this is another farfetched thing about this story.....this guy just happened to be standing in a hotel himself, when he sees Gemma get out the car with Pete. in another state. completely different from where he first looked for her.)
they drive, they stop at a hotel and he tells her that his name is Rick Harliss (she knew this already.)
apparently, they bought his daughter off of his ex wife.
and they took her to haven and who knows what happened to her.
he tells her that they are basically replicating humans.
to fill them up with a disease that will kill others in an instant.
they just cant figure out why the replicas all react differently and why it kills them at different rates.
and the children from the foster thing that were filtered into haven, were stolen because replicas are expensive to create so when funding was low, they used real live humans,.
actually, no.
im sorry. im incorrect.
Her & Jake find out because of Lyra when they're at April's grandparents house.
all Rick told her was that she is a replica (mind you, it finally fucking sticks after Lyra had told her a million times and she just choose not to listen. -_____-)
he told her that she is a replica of the daughter that her parents had actually had who passed away due to SIDS.
he then shows her a picture of his daughter and its turns out that his daughter is actually Lyra.
so, Gemma is a replica but Lyra is not.
soooo, Gemma the real replica got to live outside in the human world while Lyra, the human had to live in haven as a replica.
(this shit blew my mind, lol)
she freaks out, runs outside and it turns out that they have been found by the people that were chasing them in the first place.
then she get a call from jake.
but its actually Lyra.
she runs inside and tells Rick that she knows where his daughter is at (this was after she told him that she was dead BEFORE she knew that his daughter was actually Lyra) but that they have a trail and they need to leave to get to them (Lyra & 72) before they catch them.
so rick creates a distraction, they start a fire and they manage to escape and then they make it to Lyra & 72.
they run away and head home.
they spend the night at a rest stop and she calls her parents and lets them know she has conditions or she wont go home.
in the middle of the night, April finds them.
she finally tells April everything and they leave back home.
the end.
LYRA
not to recap everything....
the reason she survives is because she was looking for a hiding place for her little collectibles outside of her dorm (mostly she was looking because she stole a file and she didn't want them to find it in her bed).she finds a boat and in it she finds other things.
turns out 72 was hiding his stuff in there.
(72 had ran away and by that point he was believed to be dead because they weren't taught to swim)
he confronts her and then BOOM!
haven gets lit up.
(there was this lady who believed that what they were doing at haven was against God's rules so God "spoke" to her and told her to blow shit up)
72 is still kinda standoffish with her but they decide to escape since the suits will be searching the entire island for all the replicas.
walking back, she sees that Cassiopeia was hurt (she actually saw her on the way to look for a place but decided to avoid her) so she digs her up and takes her with them.
but i mean, she's fucked up, so while i 100% understand the sentiment, it was pointless.
anyway, they get out of the fence and then idk what happens and it's all of a sudden night fall.
they hide while they hear men looking for them and they leave C in the water since she cant really do much.
but she asks for help.
so the guys find her but they end up leaving her there since she's basically dead.
they'll pick her up later (although in book 2 (sorry bit of a spoiler) it seems as if they saved all the replicas that they could no matter the condition so it now doesn't make sense to me that they didn't "save" her)
this is where they run into jake and gemma.
they escape haven.
they go to April's.
this is where jake and gemma see the file and they find out about whats really going on in haven.
jake goes home.
gemma goes to the main house.
72 convinces Lyra that humans ain't shit so they ransack the house and they leave at night.
they go looking for nurse M.
they eventually make it (after honestly, hitting the luck jackpot because we all know it ain't THAT easy to always find what you need. don't believe me? say no to that cute shirt at Ross. see if you find it ever again) to nurse M's house who is now owned by someone else.
the neighbor sees them, invites them in, shows them a couple of frames Nurse M left her and low and behold, there's stuff hidden in it. they take it, run away and decide to go to Jakes house.
they make it to Jakes house and it turns out that he is dead.
(the government did it. obvs)
their people come to clean up their mess.
they almost get caught then they don't and then they do.
they run away.
they call Gemma.
Pete and Gemma go pick them up.
Gemma tells Lyra that she's human.
she loses her shit (like figuratively) and they end up driving to the camp site......and then i told you how it ends up above.
and that's it.
book 2, here i come.
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