Falls the Shadow by Stephanie Gaither

Goodreads
352 pages, YA Sci-Fi
Falls the Shadow #1
My Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis:

When Cate Benson was a kid, her sister, Violet, died. Two hours after the funeral, Cate’s family picked up Violet’s replacement. Like nothing had happened. Because Cate’s parents are among those who decided to give their children a sort of immortality—by cloning them at birth—which means this new Violet has the same smile. The same perfect face. Thanks to advancements in mind-uploading technology, she even has all of the same memories as the girl she replaced.

She also might have murdered the most popular girl in school.

At least, that’s what the paparazzi and the anti-cloning protestors want everyone to think: that clones are violent, unpredictable monsters. Cate is used to hearing all that. She’s used to defending her sister, too. But Violet has vanished, and when Cate sets out to find her, she ends up in the line of fire instead. Because Cate is getting dangerously close to secrets that will rock the foundation of everything she thought was true.

In a thrilling debut, Stefanie Gaither takes readers on a nail-biting ride through a future that looks frighteningly similar to our own time and asks: how far are you willing to go to keep your family together? 

My 2 cents:

Wow, this story had me hooked!

The basic premise: In a futuristic world, they have figured out a technology to create perfect clones. Parents can elect to have this procedure done to their children, and then the "clones" are stored in a facility, and regularly updated (their brains are like computers) with all the memories of the original. The idea being, that if a child dies, you can have them "replaced." 

The MC, Catelyn's older sister, Violet dies of a disease. Their parents are rich (her dad's the mayor) and they have cloned their kids, so Violet is replaced. Catelyn is 12 at the time, and tries to go along with it, but she knows it not really her sister. Everything goes on as normal.

4 years later, and Violet's best friend, Samantha Voss is found dead in the woods and Violet's the prime suspect. The clones have their critics in society, and this proves that the cloning process isn't perfect. Catelyn gets in the middle of a conspiracy with a government agency, and has to find her sister before they do and terminate Violet.

The story was quick moving, I couldn't put it down. What I really appreciated was that it didn't get too in depth with the technology and world building, it was easy to understand. This world was much like our own, except greater tech. The characters were good, although not too well developed, except the two sisters.

The thing I liked best was their relationship, it was so well done. Because in both their heads, they recognized that this new Violet was not really Violet, but an imitation, but they had to both pretend otherwise. So lots of complexity there, plus things get pretty crazy, making them both have to make hard choices.

The next best thing was the conspiracy and all the twists that happened throughout. It wasn't really clear who was the "bad guy" until the end, and even then, it was really the lesser of two evils. Loved that aspect.

Overall, I LOVED this, so my type of book, 5 stars!