Beta, Rachel Cohn (3.0)
‘Beta’ is another book in my Young Adult research list. In
this story the protagonist is a clone, albeit one of the first teenage clones.
She was ‘made’ to serve as a companion to the wife and children of a rich
family. They live on an island, which is too wonderful for servants (can’t get
them to work?), so they’ve used a cloning technology to reproduce the bodies of
dead people (sans soul) to use as basically slaves. While that is an
interesting concept, it seems to be faulty from the beginning (too wonderful
for servants, but ok for slaves?). I put my concerns aside and started to enjoy
the story – which follows the Beta clone as she finds out more and more of what
a clone really is – and what lies in store for her as she seems to have
memories from her original. This was quite interesting and though provoking.
Unfortunately the ending seemed a bit rushed and cobbled together. Although some
of it was very predictable, there were elements that were surprisingly abrupt
and were either odd for a YA book (the treatment of drug use and rape) or out
of character (the rape itself). I found the very end weak scientifically and
will have to wait for the sequel to see how Ms. Cohn explains herself.
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