Elysia is created in a laboratory, born as a sixteen-year-old girl, an empty vessel with no life experience to draw from. She is a Beta, an experimental model of a teenage clone. She was replicated from another teenage girl, who had to die in order for Elysia to exist. (Full description found here.)
Okay I didn't even know I wanted to read this book until yesterday. I found it at B&N, only copy, and I bought it. I was going to buy a different book but they didn't have it. Thank God! This book was so good. Seriously, unexpected good.
The setting is in the future on a paradise-type island. In the future. Actually I have no idea what happens to the world, I don't think it's explained, but there are a bunch of islands now. I think Global Warming had something to do with it? Any-hoo, this specific island, Demesne (de-mes-nay, probably) is where the story takes place.
The names in the book are tricky. Like, I really shouldn't try to pronounce them because I can't. At all. But you know how sometimes, when you read a book, your mind just skips over the names and then when you try to tell someone about the book, you get all tongue-tied because you can't pronounce anything the way you thought you read it? I don't know if that makes a whole lot'a sense but I tried.
The first name I can't say is Elysia. She's the main character. I know for a fact it's pronounced el-EE-zee-ya, because it's mentioned about a billion times in the book, but I just thought of it as Elijah, but for a girl. I think it fits, and I kind of like that name for a girl now! Moving on: Elysia is a clone.
Okay, wait--I have to backtrack to explain this.
Demesne, this paradise island, has special relaxing air that makes people forget their worries and troubles and all that jazz. So naturally, when humans go to do work there, they just breathe the air and their job never gets done. To solve this problem, clones were made. Basically a clone is just that--a copy of a person. But first the person (the clone's 'First') has to be dead so they can copy their features and body type and things. The soul of the dead person is not moved over, though, so the clones are soulless. They don't feel guilt or happiness or anything. They don't wish or want, they serve. Except for the Defects, which are of course defective--something is wrong with them. Usually they are sent back and 'expired' (tested on and killed). Most of the time, clones are adults. But with Elysia and another girl, Becky, they are teen clones. Betas. In the testing stage.
So now we can go happily back to Elysia. She's a clone. She's a good one, too. Some of the clones are labeled different things; Elysia is labeled a Tasty, because her First (the original person she was cloned from) was really pretty and, as someone points out, she's stacked. Apparently.
Next one is probably . . . Uh, I don't know. Not really anyone else. I mean there are a lot of people like Ivan and Liesel and Becky, Ti-something-that-I-can't-remember-how-it's-spelled, Alex (oh GOD ALEX), and of course there are others, but they're all not very . . . important? I mean, they're important but I can't explain much without giving like, the entire book away.
I have a weird relationship with this book. Heck, it was a flippin' great book, but the cliffhanger at the end almost gave me a heart attack! I just sat there, stunned, I couldn't even close the book. I just sat there.
Maybe that's a good thing, maybe it's not, but I definitely recommend reading this book.
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