Review: Altered

Title: Altered
Author: Jennifer Rush
Release Date: January 1, 2013
Source: bought

When you can’t trust yourself, who can you believe?

Everything about Anna’s life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who’s stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them. 

Anna is torn between following Sam or staying behind in the safety of her everyday life. But her father pushes her to flee, making Sam promise to keep her away from the Branch, at all costs. There’s just one problem. Sam and the boys don’t remember anything before living in the lab—not even their true identities.

Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away.

Nancy’s Review:

I knew I was going to like Altered before I even began reading it. I mean, very little could go wrong for me when the book is about four hot guys. I know, I know… how very superficial of me, but whatever. It’s what I like. Thank God the book did actually turn out to be good and I wasn’t misled by my own assumptions.

First of all, the boys were amazing. I loved them all (of course). I loved their personalities and how they were all so different from one another. The author did a great job with the characters, giving them all distinct voices and roles in the book. Each of them seemed to have a different purpose and I liked that. My favorite characters were definitely Sam and Anna. Sam was so determined to find the answers to all of their problems, which I found to be a great quality. I liked that he was so invested in his plans, but still found the time to grow close to Anna and care for her. Anna was a pretty cool character. She acted like I would imagine a typical girl her age would act like, so I was very pleased with that. I think it worked very well for this book.

Besides the characters, I really liked the plot. It was very well thought out and everything fell into place as the story moved forward. I felt that I was being given just enough information to make my own guesses about what was going to happen, but not too much to make it overly predictable. It moved at a good pace and there a nice mix of action and mystery thrown in there.

Overall, Altered was amazing. It made it to my top favorites. I was in love with all the characters and the story line. I loved that the plot took some turns that I was just not expecting. It was a job well done and I’m really excited to read the sequel!