Origin by Jessica Khoury

When you read as many books as I do in a year, it can be very difficult to find a book that is truly unique, a book that truly amazes you by speaking with a different voice, a book that you can't wait to recommend to someone else - a book like Origin. 

Pia is the end result of a science experiment that has been running in the rainforest for decades, an experiment that has created the perfect human - Pia.  But Pia is one of a kind, the result of the Immortis project, a project that she will lead one day as the scientists in Little Cam work towards the goal of a race of immortal beings just like Pia. 

Content with her life at Little Cam, Pia seldom thinks about the world outside the wires, she is too busy learning the science she needs to run the Immortis project from her Aunts and Uncles.  She has lived her life in a cage, and she doesn't even know it - until the night she turns 17 and finds a hole in the fence around the compound.  The rainforest is even more amazing than she imagined, and it is not as empty as she thought - something she finds out when she runs into Eio and finds out that there is a village of "natives" not far from the compound.  Suddenly the world is more exciting and engaging, but it is also full of secrets that Pia may wish she had never discovered.

Check out the book trailer for this debut novel that is impossible to put down. 

If you enjoyed Origin you may also enjoy Variant by Robison Wells, Article 5 by Kristen Simmons, Enclave by Ann Aguirre, The Hunt by Andrew Fakuda, Enchanted by Alethea Knotis, and The Selection by Kiera Cass.

~ Reviewed by Elspeth Sweetman