5/5
When Davy Hamilton's tests come back positive for Homicidal Tendency Syndrome (HTS)-aka the kill gene-she loses everything. Her boyfriend ditches her, her parents are scared of her, and she can forget about her bright future at Juilliard. Davy doesn't feel any different, but genes don't lie. One day she will kill someone.
Only Sean, a fellow HTS carrier, can relate to her new life. Davy wants to trust him; maybe he's not as dangerous as he seems. Or maybe Davy is just as deadly.
------
Who is this girl? The well-bred girl who sang opera and carefully styled her hair every morning so that it looked carefully messy is gone. As good as dead. Stragely enough, she has to be if I want to survive.
Imagine a world where a single gene determines your future, if you'll be maybe the next ax murderer or school shooter. In this book that world is reality. Davy Hamilton is a normal 17-years-old teenager whose hobbies include playing multiple different instruments and singing . She is a successful, popular, and she has been accepted to study at Juilliard. One day, however, the test results show that she has the so-called "killgene". Davy is fired from a private school, her acceptance to Juilliard canceled and she will have to go to a public schools killgene carrier class, "the Cage". Davy's whole life will change once and for all, and she turns from popular music proginy to an outcast and feared freak. Life is no longer easy and Davy loses her hope in a bright future. When all hope seems to be gone, Davy gets an opportunity to go to a training camp, where only a selected few specific gene carriers can get. Also Gil and Sean from her carrier class get the same opportunity. Davy believes that this is her chance for a better future, but the camp is not quite what Davy thought it would be.
I enjoyed this book immensely. The idea is really interesting and the story is well written. The idea of a killer gene sounds pretty scary, when in fact studies have found a little similar gene called "warrior gene", if I remember correctly. The gene carriers resort to violence more easily than normal people.
In this book, the idea of this gene is taken pretty far, and killgene is almost like epidemic, and it's carriers are like plague patients who are isolated from the others and avoided.
It's interesting to think about the existence of this gene, especially how people resort to violence. Of course there is a real sociopaths who really enjoy the violence and who really are dangerous. But what about the people whose nature is not violent at all, such as for example, Davy? What about when you are isolated from the others, you will be feared and controlled and you will be driven strait into a corner? No one will defend or protect you. It is horrible to think that you do not get to defend yourself because then you will be branded with a tattoo like a cattle. It is absolutely horrible that some people are classified so easy, and then they actually provoke you until the "desired" reaction can be obtained. It's just so wrong. I could not help, but to feel anger at the thought of what the world of the story is. In a way, the thing is that because you have the killgene, you will become a killer almost by force. You will be driven into a corner, so that killing seems to be only way out.
But like I said, I really loved this book. I read it in one night, because I just could not stop. And I really look forward the next book. I could probably say, however, that I was not completely satisfied with the ending. How should I say it without spoiling too much... The ending was pretty nice, but somehow things happened perhaps too smoothly. In a way it was nice ending for this book, but there wasn't that delicious, nervwrecking cliffhanger, that makes you want to rip you hair off and beg to get your hand on arc of the next book. I know, those endings are always annoying, when you turn the page and it's just blank and you really have to wait the next book to know what happens. But that's the thing, you still want that ending, 'cos the waiting is so deliciously torturous. And I would have preferred something more like it. For something little bigger, little more. Now the book ended in such a way that, even if I'm just going to want to read the next book, it is likely I'm not in a hurry to read it. I'll read after the release when I remember, but I won't lose my sleep over it.
