Altered by Jennifer Rush (review)

Convinced that her father’s scientific pursuits must have some noble purpose, home-schooled teenager Anna has never really questioned the ethics of Dad’s experimenting on four genetically altered teenage boys in the basement laboratory of their New York State farmhouse. Instead, she has spent the last five years befriending three of the boys and falling in love with the other (easy to do when the boys are designed to be physically gorgeous but manage to maintain their existential angst). When operatives from a secret organization show up to claim the boys, Sam—the object of Anna’s affections and the group leader—stages an escape, bringing Anna along with them. As she and Sam discover more about the boys’ true identities, Anna begins to realize that her memories aren’t matching up with reality and that the boys may not have been her father’s only experiment. Readers are catapulted into the action of this riveting pseudo-science thriller almost immediately—a good thing too, as the quick pace leaves little time to question some of the premise’s more unbelievable points. Anna’s clearly naïve view makes her a complex protagonist, and the reliability of her narration is called into question once readers realize that she too is being manipulated by outside sources, adding another layer of intrigue to an already suspenseful ride. Her obsession with Sam borders on clinginess, but a superbly designed plot twist adds nuance to this characteristic and makes her relationship with all four of the boys even more complicated. The guys are hot, the romance steamy, and the action fierce—what more could a girl want?