“Reading the genetic code behind a feather or a cell can make you feel like you’re reading poetry written by God.”
― Emily Suvada, This Mortal Coil
Overall I liked and enjoyed this series. It was kind of creepy how many of the things that happened in the books are what we are experiencing today with the pandemic. It gave me shivers at times.
What I liked:
“It’s funny, that saying—I’d rather die. It’s funny because nobody means it. The truth is that when you’re facing death, there’s no telling what you’ll do.”
― Emily Suvada, This Mortal Coil
- The science and the genetics were one of the most interesting parts of the story. I don’t know much about genetics or cloning, but the basics in this story seemed solid. There was a lot of speculative writing about where genetics could take us, but it seemed plausible for the most part.
- The characters were well developed and grew over the course of the books. There was a romance between a couple of them, but I liked how their relationship didn’t overshadow the main storyline much of the time.
- Catarina is the only narrator in the first two books and I really liked her. She was smart and brave and had a good moral compass. She was capable of sticking to her morals when needed.
- Found family and friendships were strong in this series.
- The world building was well done and I could totally see our society going this route. One corporation, Cartaxus, pretty much ruled the world, and was not exactly the good guys, but they did try at least.
- Although it was pretty gross, the virus that was killing everyone off, was kind of cool. The infected were sort of zombies that then exploded into virus filled clouds and that is how the virus spread. Such a yuck factor, but kind of cool too. Also, you had to eat the flesh of an infected person to give yourself immunity, monthly. Two shots doesn’t sound to bad now does it!
What I didn’t like
“If there is a design that underpins us, Catarina, then it is cold, it is violent, and it is cruel.”
― Emily Suvada, This Cruel Design
- Although the world building, and the characters and the story were all good, the actual writing at times wasn’t. There were some pacing issues and things were repeated excessively. The dialogue also needed some work.
- The first two books had only one narrator, Cat, which was ok, but I really would have liked some other points of view. The last book had Cat and Jun Bei as the narrators and I really liked that one.
- The audiobooks really were not that great. They were good enough that I listened to all three books, but that might have been more of an issue of time for me. Skye Bennett has a nice voice, but there were some modulation issues and there wasn’t much distinction between character voices.
“There’s no point in fighting for a future when we won’t be able to live with the things we did to reach it.”
― Emily Suvada, This Vicious Cure
This was a really good dystopian series with a really good world building and characters. If you are into these types of books than I recommend you take a look at this series. Although I do not recommend you try the audiobooks.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 