My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Good Reads Rating: 3.64
Content Rating: 16+ (Disturbing images, sexual situations)
Series: IFICS #1
Genre: YA Sci-Fi Romance
Pages: 284
Publisher: Valknut Press
Check it out: Good Reads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Good Reads Summary:
Donate Body to Science. Check.
When seventeen-year-old Kaitlyn checked the box, she never suspected she’d have her life–and her body–stolen from her. She awakens one day in a secret laboratory to discover that her body is now half-robot and is forced to hide her own secret: that she still has human emotions and a human mind. If the scientists who made her find out, they’ll erase what remains of who she was.
Kaitlyn finds an unlikely ally in Lucas, a handsome, brilliant scientist who can’t get over the guilt he feels knowing she was once a vibrant, beautiful young woman. He never expected a science project to affect him the way she does. As he tries to help her rediscover her past, he finds himself falling for the brave girl struggling to find her place and acceptance between the human and computer worlds.
I had really high expectations for this book, probably because the cover is so awesome. As I’ve said before, covers are a huge deal to me, and if the cover is lame, its likely that I won’t give the book a second glance (I know, I’m so judgmental). So I was excited about Freak of Nature. I liked a lot of things about this book. I thought it was an interesting premise; unique (or at least, I’ve never read a book like it before), and the romance, once it got into it, was very sweet. The second half of this book was where I really enjoyed it. I actually put it down and walked away half way through the first half… cause I was kind of bored. I picked I up again later because it’s a Netgalley book and I had to finish it. I was very glad I did.
I’ll explain first why I got bored. I think it had to do with the fact that the protagonist, Kaitlyn, is pretty boring. She’s this half human, half robot wandering around trying to decide if she has feelings and doing science test things. That bit wasn’t very motivating for me. And the love story was very weird at the beginning, because Lucas was in love with (what he was convinced was) a robot. So that was kind of hard for me to believe. Once they got to know each other better and he realizes she’s still very human, I warmed up to their relationship. But before that, I was a little weirded out.
Quess, the granddaughter of one of the scientists, was ok I guess. A bunch of other reviews went on and on about how great she was. I thought she fine, but she didn’t really leave much of an impression on me. It was nice to see robot-Kaitlyn getting to interact with a regular person who wasn’t weirdly in love with her robot-self.
And then things started happening, and I got a whole lot more interested.
So, Kaitlyn was supposed to be sold to the highest bidder (most likely someone in the armed forces), and then Lucas decides to help her escape. Running ensues, and then things get hot and heavy and then resolution happens. So all that was much more interesting than the first half of “Gee…I’m a robot. I don’t know how I feel about that. Do I feel anything about that? Do I feel?” yada yada. I may be coming across as heartless here. I apologize. I’m sure it was absolutely terrifying to wake up and suddenly be part robot. I can only imagine the horror. But I was just looking for a teensy bit more action after the waking up bit. Anyway. It was the time when you got to know the individual characters and such, but there wasn’t even any back story then because Kaitlyn is completely shrouded in mystery. All of that goodness came in the second half. And it was good; her backstory is sad, but gives her good motivation for the future. I don’t know. I know other people have really enjoyed this book, and like I’ve already said, the second half is good, but only if you can wade through the beginning. Aside from that, the writing is good, it flows pretty well, and the characters are interesting (and as I said previously, it’s a unique premise). So, worth reading, but I do give a warning for the beginning being slow. I am interested in reading the second however, now that things are moving along.
