Altered by Jennifer Rush

TL;DR a drawn-out chase of genetically engineered teens by the evil corporation that experimented on them

(finished 6/29/15)

I do have to give Altered credit in that I was able to finish it in spite of my reading slump. I sat down to read it in my free time, and it was easy enough to get into. However, I wasn't impressed by it. And I think I might be in the minority on this one. Keep that in mind. 

Altered just didn't feel all that interesting or unique to me. The narration wasn't anything spectacular (and was even cliche, thank you "I let out the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding" on pg 311). I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters. They were easy enough to tell apart, though Trev and Cas were pretty similar to me. I think the characters bordered a little bit on cliche, too, considering Nick was all bad-boy archetype and Sam was the stereotypical hero. 

The concept of the story was good, I think, but I think I would've been more interested in seeing them in the lab than just on the run. It didn't feel like there was any character development and the plotline of "avoid the Branch" was pretty basic. It's been done before and there wasn't anything that really made it stand out. The plotline of trying to find and decipher the clues left behind from before the story started wasn't intriguing enough to me, either. I think some people could find it interesting, trying to figure it out alongside the characters, but I didn't care for it. The whole mystery aspect didn't appeal to me at all. 

I only sticky-noted the last quarter of the book or so, so I didn't have too many issues up until the ending really started. There was nothing that made me support the romance that popped up (thankfully it was kind of minimal, but my comment on the last sentence of the book is "gag"). The final conflict felt poorly set up to me, both in narration and how the characters tried to execute it. Their game plan kind of made me question how they managed to evade the Branch that long. 

A lot of people have reviewed Altered pretty high on goodreads, and I can only find a couple where the readers weren't impressed. I think I probably just wasn't part of the intended audience of the book. I'm definitely more for character-driven books than plot-driven. I think part of my issue with the book was just that I didn't feel invested enough in the characters. I wasn't given enough to really care about them. (Point in case: when some of the boys were injured and left behind, I was just kind of like "whatever". It honestly didn't bother me that they were going to be re-captured. Maybe I'm just a heartless person. I don't know.) 

My friends seemed to enjoy the book more than me, and one of them recommended the second book, so I'll probably give that a try if the chance arises. I'm not gonna go out of my way to track it down, though. 

TL;DR Altered wasn't my thing. It felt too cliche and I didn't care for the characters or the stake of the plot.