GENES Review (Reviewer Copy)

    Ava is working to find the ingredients to make a cure for HelixB88 in the black market, but while doing so, she discovers the location of a hidden ISAN facility. This information could be just what the rebels need to bring ISAN down once and for all, but they first must find the female citizens that are displaying powers without an injection of Helix before ISAN gets to them first. While the rebels keep working toward their ultimate goal, ISAN enacts their plan to end the rebel force by using someone inside the rebel base to cause the base to collapse on itself. Ava will be forced to make a decision that could potentially lead to recapture or maybe even death.

   Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Additionally, the author sent me this book as a free review copy; however, this did not influence my review. This is 100% my honest opinion. Let's begin:

    I'm officially giving Mary Ting the title "Queen of Making Books Fly By" because this is the third time I've watched the progress bar on one of her books make just one or two giant leaps. Granted, there were a couple of parts in this book that were a bit slower, mostly in the first half, but the book went by extremely fast overall. With the exception of 28 pages, I read this entire book in one day because it was that good. If that seems like a normal thing for you then I'll add this on- I took away an entire day from my Star Wars binge to read this. I repeat, I interrupted the marathon that I am highly invested in because I decided I couldn't only read a few chapters after starting. If you don't like Star Wars, replace that with whatever movie/show you love and would do a marathon for. If this doesn't speak volumes for how great this book is then I don't know what will.

    When I sat down to write this review initially I was considering taking away half a star from my rating for those moments where the book got a little bit slow. Once I started writing, though, it just didn't feel right. Nothing in life constantly flies by (at least, nothing I can think of) and books are no exception. There has to be some slower parts to set up for those fast paced moments. The slower parts really weren't that bad anyways. I could see their importance to the book, so they didn't upset me much. Plus, the rest of the book- especially the second half- easily made up for them and then some.

    One of Ting's other strengths is plot twists and mysteries. There were A TON of plot twists throughout this entire book that definitely kept me invested. I liked how the big cliff hanger at the end of Helix was answered almost right away in this book with a major plot twist that helped set the entire tone of the book. There were so many moments where I was shocked at something that was revealed (like at the end, I mean WHAT?!). 

    I also really liked the point of view additions of Mitch and Justine. These are two characters that I became very interested in during book 2, so I enjoyed getting in their heads at times. I think this was a great way to introduce new secrets and allow readers to see sides of them that I don't think we would get to see otherwise. I know these chapters were really impactful for me and changed my opinions on them at least a little.

    Overall, this book was fantastic and a really strong addition to the series. It had me shocked and questioning the entire read, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I am SO excited for Code (book 4) and am sure I will devour that one in a day too if it is anywhere near as good as this one.

    Thank you so much to Mary Ting and Angie from the Instagram page @marytingnews for the copy of this book!

Rating: 5/5 stars

Author: Mary Ting

Publisher: Vesuvian Books

# of Pages: 352 (Kindle edition)

Genre: YA, Sci-fi

Series: International Sensory assassin Network (Book 3)