Skin Trials (Skin Trials Series, book 1)

By S.Y. Humphrey

Blurb: 
Seren is one of the most powerful young women on Earth.

Little does she know her parents’ new government, Perfect Society, harbors a terrible genetic secret. By the year 2042, the nation has managed to survive the floods and flesh-eating outbreak of the 2020's. Perfect Society has corrected the devastating losses and restored peace to all citizens. Or has it?

The terrorist group Anthistemi shatters the world with the genetically-modified truth. The government, led by Seren's father, carried out gruesome torture and decimation in the Skin Trials. Antistemi reveals the truth Seren never knew about herself.

Citizens rage, demanding answers about their missing loved ones. Once again, Old America clashes with New America. Old wounds lead to new bloodshed. The fallout reaches apocalyptic fighting. There is one scientist who can end the rebellion and destruction.

Now that Seren knows, she must choose - the genetic lie that empowers her, or the deadly terrorists who stand ready to destroy it all.

Review: 
I read the novella for this series before the book, which I loved but then the first of this series was a bit different.

The story on a while was great, it's about a girl who is changed genetically and is planning a mission to go to space. It start off where she is doing a presentation about the work her and her team have done to allow this mission to happen when there is sort of an imposter that has been allowed in which asks personal questions and knows stuff about her as they've got hold of her medical records. She gets defensive of this and reacts badly.

Her boyfriend Lyndon is about to propose too when more information is leaked but then his offer is withdrawn. I find this a bit heartbreaking to be honest and I honestly don't know why she forgives him, if I was in her position I would never accept him back because he only withdrew it because she wasn't perfect so she couldn't be part of the perfect society anymore.

But anyways, she is kidnapped in this book which is the main part of the story by an anti genetic group, can't think of the proper name. But basically they are off the radar and have never scanned in with the vscan so aren't on the system to be treated for medical conditions, they fight their way through life to survive and they live of trades with secret agents within the different tiers.

Seren slowly learns more about herself after being kidnapped and I feel her personality actually starts to change. I feel like I can start to relate to her more the further in the book I read. She is quite a stuck up character though and it takes her a while to discover what her father is actually doing to the world and how he is supposed to be helping people when in fact he is making their lives more difficult. 

Throughout her journey I feel she makes quite a few friends which are valuable to her development. I feel at times that these relationships are forced and that there is barely any trust. But I can understand that they are her kidnappers and why would you want to trust the information they are telling her. Things change though, like I've said throughout the review, as she starts to see more of the world.

The storyline feels like it wasn't fully developed to an extent, nothing really happened in my opinion there was no real side lines. I feel like this book could have been at least 100 pages shorter but that is my opinion and this review is honest. I do admit towards the end I did start to enjoy it more as there was a lot more action and there was a few twists throughout and pieces starting to join together. 

I sadly don't think it meets my 4 star criteria because of the lack of action within a large chunk of the book. I also feel that I didn't want to carry on reading it at times and to me a 4 star book I should not want to put it down because the story is enticing me.

Favourite Character: Seren

Read: 05/11/19 - 14/11/19

3 stars out of 5

written by Sammie