Emily Suvada

Seventeen-year-old Cat must use her gene-hacking skills to decode her late father's message that conceals the vaccine to a horrifying plague.

This Mortal Coil

Christine

To whoever decided that the love triangle was a good YA plot device: Why?
Why??????
I am in physical pain..

Otherwise: WHAT?????? THE??????? FRICK?????????????
this was a. a Wild Ride. from start to finish. i legitimately am still reeling. Help Me
this- i
okay.

i really flipping love the premise & the world but the pLOT IS . ow brain (good)
i forgot how to grammar

I haven't read such a convincing sci-fi in so freaking long. Solid plot, solid characters, solid chemistry and solid plot twists. Loved every moment of it. Can't wait to read more!

nuha ✨️

This book is AMAZING! 

I haven't read such a convincing sci-fi in so freaking long. Solid plot, solid characters, solid chemistry and solid plot twists. Loved every moment of it. Can't wait to read more!

Kelsey Joëlle

I've had this book on my shelves for AGES. Never came to reading them, never felt like it.

But then I saw it on Scribd, and I decided to listen to it.

I loved this book. Complex, great world builing, cool characters. Yes please!
I listened to this book in about a week (?) on my way from and to work. I decided that I never want to listen to the radio anymore in the car. 

So, Loved the book, loved the characters, loved the world. Definitly worth the read!

Very neat concept! Very well sold. Love a changing landscape within an unfamiliar world 

Lilly Snyder

Livia

Okay. Whew. I don't know how I could survive all those twists. And the whole virus thing kinda hits a bit too close at home, you get?

I just simply adore the way Cat's brain works. She's so intelligent and innovative, it makes my brain look like a puddle. The whole thing is really, really confusing at first, but I started to get the gist of it along the way. Reading this makes me feel bad because I couldn't understand it properly because it feels like only the big brainers could understand. Yet I'm still somehow pulled by the story.

Have I mentioned how the twists shocked me to the core? The whole reveal about the virus, about Lachlan, about Catarina, we have been given breadcrumbs along the way, yet my dumb brain couldn't bring together what is really going on.

Meghan M

This book is really well-written and organized amazingly. The book had me hooked from the beginning throughout every twist and turn that was woven into the plot. I highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially if you are interested in apocalyptic, end-of-the-world type books or science filled books. The science in the book was described so in depth that you wouldn't even need to know anything about genetics or coding to understand it. Emily Suvada did an amazing job with this book and I am highly anticipating reading book two.

courtney garrison

** spoiler alert **
           This book started off strange for me. You are introduced to your MC two years after the plague and you get some backstory as you go along with her in her journey of survival and trying to find a cure. With this plague, called Hydra, you have to eat the skin of the infected to stay alive. You have to do unimaginable things in this world to stay alive and keep immunity. One afternoon a Cartaxus solider arrives at Cat’s home and she thinks he is there to take her away into the bunkers where her father Lachlan told her it wasn’t safe, so she runs

The writing in this novel is so well written and amazing. You are constantly seeing the characters go and move, it is somewhat fast paced and not a slow novel. You are thrown from her campsite to mines to the bunkers to the skies network and then the lab. You see her struggle with coming to terms with things about her father and who she is, while also going through unimaginable pain.

One thing I did enjoy most about this novel was all the technology. They have healing techs and apps to help cure diseases. I loved how everything revolved around the technology and coding. It was fascinating how the author created a world in which you could alter the way you look and your overall health with a few pieces of code, I was amazed.

I did enjoy the book, but I hated the love trope in the book. It had its part in the novel, but it was just really annoying to me and seemed to take away from the story, to me. I am fine with the lovey stuff, but this just seemed a bit overdone in an apocalyptic setting to me. I wish the author would have dialed it back a bit.

Overall I enjoyed this novel and loved every minute reading it. I read this novel in two days and just couldn’t put it down. The virus and all the technology not to mention the storyline was amazing. It was such an intense ending that I really didn’t see coming. I can not wait to see where the author takes this series. I’m assuming it will be a series by the cliffhanger at the end.

Fraser Simons

This book is such a strange beast. I’ve actually been moving it down my TBR because every time it hits the top, I’m just not in the mood or was hesitant because of the science aspects of the book. But it handled all of that really well, actually. I mean, I’m not scientist but this feels like it’s pretty well researched. 

Putting labels on this is pretty difficult because of that. It’s definitely YA; it can feel too tropey sometimes. But I was finally in the mood for something like that, and it executes that aspect of the genre really well. The voice is personable and intelligent; it has excellent flow, definitely a page turner. It’s action packed, has a slow burn romance (the most indifferent things about the book for me, personally), and is post apocalyptic due to a virus. 

On the tin, so to speak, it’s fairly generic: A young woman loses her father, a leading expert in virology, to a corporation that exfiltrates him to their lab in order to solve a pandemic; leaving her alone to make her own way through the rapidly declining civilization. 2 years later a solider finds her and tells her the father is dead, but hope for humanity lies in her own gene hacked enchantments. They just need to follow the clues to figure out how to decrypt it and deal with all the challenges beyond that.

I think someone recommended this to me when I was reading biopunk/cyberpunk stuff, because this book is great with those aspects. It’s absolutely the highlight of the text for me. There’s a neat intersection between here bio enhancements and integrated technologies. It’s not too cerebral, but the author definitely seems to know her stuff. She explains it just well enough that you get that she knows what she’s talking about (AFAIK) and then moves on. 

It also works as a vector for larger themes we see today. Corporations attempting to monopolize the gene market and this research itself opening the door for ethical questions. While those questions specifically are not new, they aren’t antiquated. More recent decisions about this scientific research is at play, and the overall understanding geneticists have is far more updated than we have seen in the genre. For instance, it does not hinge on cloning (thank god). 

The virus itself is also pretty unique. It’s still a zombie trope, but has an interesting spin. Once infected they go through stages, the last one being to actually explode—sending particulates and human debris into the air as a contagion. But if people actually consume people at an earlier stage of the virus they are immune, and there is a stage where the pheromones released make people want to do so. 

It certainly feels like a man made, horrific, sick scientist sort of thing. It’s also handled in a way that really effectively annunciates the suspense and the themes of the book without, somehow, not being too melodramatic. 

And melodramatic it is. But… in the exact right dosage? I don’t know how to explain it other than just “fun”? It’s not so melodramatic that you bail, it’s just enough that it fits the genre conventions and is dramatic. I think if the prose and craft weren’t there this could easily have turned into something that was unlikable. There’s plenty of plot twists and will-they-won’t-they and then cool action sequences that dovetail into talking about her cool, inbuilt technologies and other world building I found to be just as interesting. 

It’s a story you need to be in the mood for, I think. But provided a perfect mesh of popcorn fiction, spec fiction, melodrama, and action. Truly a chimera of YA fiction, but I’m here for it, honestly.

Leah Patton

Sheila

2.5 stars. This book was a great concept wrapped in unfortunate YA tropes. I would still recommend this book for teens wanting to try out some sci-fi, dystopian fic and/or a medical thriller for the first time as the plot is a great introduction to these genres, but the WHOLLY UNNECESSARY LOVE TRIANGLE made me irrationally mad, thus my own enjoyment was reduced.

I thought the Twist™️ wasn’t bad, and was a not-detrimental way to continue the story beyond 1 book. There’s mixed feelings about it here, but in all honesty the love triangle (such as it was, Dax brought absolutely nothing to this story) eclipsed everything in terms of negative emotions.

Not sure if I’ll continue with this series, but I think I’m leaning towards just letting this lie here.

Sofie

I was looking for a great dystopian, and man, did I find it. 

This book kept me on my toes! I couldn't put it down. 

Cole gave me butterflies. There were so many twists and turns, and I didn't see ANY of them coming. Literally, none. 

I CANNOT wait for book 2!!

Luna

the plague plot for the first half was 10/10 everything i could ever dream of but the instalove turned instalust (and saying lust and “forced” kisses are the true “love from the heart” instead of, idk, actual emotional love that people, especially the targeted audience of teenagers, feel) that completely took over the plot in the second half ruined it for me. i want to hear about a plague and people blowing up — i do not want to hear about how being “broken” means you should date someone and how your sudden wanting to boink them is more important than loving someone your entire life. on the bright side, the love triangle/square was a very anti-ddlg and it was hilarious

laura

I found this book to a very fast pace read. I thought the world building and science was so interesting but I did sometimes get lost in the details. I thought that the world building because it was a mystery felt like massive info dump near the end and just wanted more time to process the ending. I did not feel super connected to the characters but I really loved reading the book. The pacing was overall quick pace but had slow moments towards the middle of the book. I def did not send the massive ending coming and found that to super cool. I am really am exited to read book 2 soon!

3 billion lives at stake. 2 people who can save them. 1 secret hidden in their DNA. A breathtaking debut series about one girl's quest for answers in a genetically and technologically advanced future. There's no gene for RUN LIKE HELL. When a lone soldier, Cole, arrives with news of Lachlan Agatta's death, all hope seems lost for Catarina. Her father was the world's leading geneticist, and humanity's best hope of beating a devastating virus. Then, hidden beneath Cole's genehacked enhancements she finds a message of hope: Lachlan created a vaccine. Only she can find and decrypt it, if she can unravel the clues he left for her. The closer she gets, the more she finds herself at risk from Cartaxus, a shadowy organization with a stranglehold on the world's genetic tech. But it's too late to turn back. As the pieces fit together it's clear there is one final secret that Cat must unlock. A secret that will change everything. With the pace and twists of a thriller, an emotional sucker-punch, the exquisite world-building of the best fantasy, and an imagined future that sci-fi fans will love, THIS MORTAL COIL has all the ingredients to become the next phenomenon in YA.

Alice

Paige Green

Rating: 5/5

Genre: YA Sci-Fi/Dystopian

Pages: 425

Amazon

Author

In this gripping debut novel, seventeen-year-old Cat must use her gene-hacking skills to decode her late father’s message concealing a vaccine to a horrifying plague.

Catarina Agatta is a hacker. She can cripple mainframes and crash through firewalls, but that’s not what makes her special. In Cat’s world, people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, allowing them to change their bodies in any way they want. And Cat happens to be a gene-hacking genius.

That’s no surprise, since Cat’s father is Dr. Lachlan Agatta, a legendary geneticist who may be the last hope for defeating a plague that has brought humanity to the brink of extinction. But during the outbreak, Lachlan was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called Cartaxus, leaving Cat to survive the last two years on her own.

When a Cartaxus soldier, Cole, arrives with news that her father has been killed, Cat’s instincts tell her it’s just another Cartaxus lie. But Cole also brings a message: before Lachlan died, he managed to create a vaccine, and Cole needs Cat’s help to release it and save the human race.

Now Cat must decide who she can trust: The soldier with secrets of his own? The father who made her promise to hide from Cartaxus at all costs? In a world where nature itself can be rewritten, how much can she even trust herself? - Amazon.com

Let's start with the fact that when I read this was going to be a dystopian I was like "YAS GIVE ME THIS BOOK". I've been wanting to read this book since I saw it was slated to come out and so I was pumped to finally read it. I have to say that this was one of my favorite reads of 2017 and my husband even buddy read it with me (meaning we fought over who would get to read the book in an hour of downtime we had). I thought the plot was fantastically done and the pacing was on point. The characters were all very well developed and while the book had a somewhat love triangle in it it was not a typical YA love triangle and it was fantastically written to not annoy the crap out of me. The book as a whole was wonderfully well wrote and I think this book could be the next Hunger Games or Divergent.

The only issues I had with the book is that I thought the science was a bit hit or miss (I do recognize that Emily is infinitely smarter than me in math and science but sometimes there is a bit of suspension of belief with sci-fi books and I didn't see how some of these things could come to be... but then again my great grandmother said the same thing about men landing on the moon so anything is possible!) and I wanted to know more about the world. The world building for the most part was fantastic, but I think that there could have been more. 

Verdict: I am excited to see the sequel whenever it comes out! I will be first in line to Barnes and Noble when it's on the shelves and I won't be afraid to cry like a baby when I get my copy. I loved this book and if you loved the hunger games or divergent then you'll love this book.

Anastaciya

It's okay. interesting concept of the illness. But reads so much like many-many other dystopian YAs...
I'd say 2.5, but don't want to round it up. nothing extraordinary about this book.

Becca Futrell

Hello, it's a-me! Here with a rave review of This Mortal Coil. This was a buddy read with Kaleena & Taylor & honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to read this any other way. I had such a blast screaming with them. 

Quick disclaimer: Science Fiction is very hit or miss for me. But, it's safe to say that This Mortal Coil opened me up to wanting to explore more in the genre. It was absolutely exhilarating; this book did not let up for a second when it comes to action, twist & turns. From the very first chapter, you find yourself enthralled with the universe & wanting to flip the pages to figure out what's going on. & every chapter ends with some jaw-dropping event or realization. & also, lemme just say -- this book had me HELLA STRESS. But, in the best way possible.

I'm pretty sure Emily Suvada's goal in life is to make us suffer.

In This Mortal Coil, you honestly have no idea who to trust. In fact, there's a particular character where after the book was closed, I still wonder what happened & I'm curious to where they'll be in This Cruel Design & where their alliance resides.

It's also worth noting the heartstrings that were pulled throughout This Mortal Coil. Guys, I didn't enter this book thinking that I was going to ship something until my last breath. This Mortal Coil automatically started with me obsessed with one ship -- & then I ended up breaking up with that one & falling in love with the ULTIMATE ship. I swooned one too many times during my read; I'm!!!! in love!!!

OH GOSH & THE WRITING. This is Emily Suvada's debut novel & holy wow am I impressed. The writing in This Mortal Coil is the writing that inspires me to follow my dreams & do the damn thing. Thank you, Emily, for being an inspiration in my life. ♥

I honestly don't want to go too deep into this review, because I really don't want to spoil anything for anyone, because it's WORTH the read. I strongly strongly recommend getting your hands on This Mortal Coil & then screaming @ me about it later.

This story follows Caterina, the daughter of the worlds famous geneticist. When Cole shows up, revealing the death of her dad, she realizes that he holds the cure for the Hydra virus inside of him. She is the only one with the knowledge to figure out the cure and save whats left of humanity. But her journey isn't an easy one, as a secret organization--Cartaxus--is holding all technology and wants the cure just as bad. With secrets that will turn her life upside down, new friendships, and quick a plot twist, Caterina's life just got way more complicated. 

When I first went into this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. It didn't sound like something I usually read, and seemed a bit to science fiction for my current liking, but something drew me to it. Maybe the cover or the use of DNA and how different that sounded. I started out unsure but quickly became enthralled in this story, in the characters and the twists!

My Thoughts:
Plot:
The idea that DNA has such a twist on the lives of people really caught me. I think it's cool and different how they can change their DNA with the use of technology. I do wish this was described a tad better. Going in, I thought this meant they could physically change themselves but maybe that's just on me. I would have liked some of these technological aspects to have been described a little better for people who aren't into it, hacking and coding. 

I think the whole dystopia atmosphere added to the story itself. I would have liked some more back story information put in. Obviously a flu type virus killed a lot of people, but some more info on the beginning of that would have been nice. 

There were a few parts in the plot that weren't explained well or handled good in my opinion. I felt lost at a few parts and often confused. I don't know coding, hacking and technology that well so sometimes I felt lost and needed a better explanation. To get a better understanding of the Hydra virus and why it affects them in such a way would have been great, too. 

Overall for the plot, it was good. It had it's high points and low points. I think towards the middle is where it really picked up for me, as it felt less like a cliche dystopian/science fiction. The twists toward the end hit one after another and I actually went "WHAT" at one point because I was caught completely off guard. 

The group Cartaxus was weird for me. It wasn't given a great development in the plot I think. I wanted to know more about them, if they're really bad or are good (although thanks to books, everyone is gray). I just wanted to know more about them and why they did what they did. It was pretty lackluster to me and a weak plot point.

Characters
Cat is a genius hacker which is awesome. I think that's something seldom seen in YA fiction (or at least in the books I read!). She's got this smart cookie, kickass feel to her without being completely impenetrable like other heroines in dystopia type worlds. Cat is realistic in the sense that she grows as the story continues, coming into herself and learning things. I felt for her when things started coming to light and I think she handled it pretty well. 

Cole is sent to Cat with the intent on protecting her and helping get the vaccine for the Hydra virus. He was sent by her dad, Dr. Lachlan Agatta. I wasn't too sure how to feel about this character in the start. I thought he was just there to help until the real love interest, Dax, showed up again. Cole kind of came off as stand-offish and I couldn't tell if he was friend or foe, especially bringing the news of her dads death. As the story went on, I found myself liking him more but I didn't have that connection I usually do with the heroes of the story. I would have liked a bit more emotion played into his parts and dialogue. 

Dax is barely in this book and I didn't like him in the beginning or near the end. 

Lachlan, Cat's dad, is something of an enigma I think. He first comes off as a regular father, just a highly sought after geneticist. The more we get to know him through Cat's inner thoughts, memories, and what's revealed shows a pretty messed up guy, even with the intention of saving humanity. He's a very gray character, and in my opinion a nice villain to the story. I can see somewhat of why he did what he did but I'd love more of an explanation.

So this was a pretty good read. it was a little slow in the beginning but keep with it because it's a pretty great story and I loved the last half of the book the most. The characters I enjoyed but I'd love some more to come in and see how they fit into her world. The plot could have been better executed but I felt like it held its own for what the story is about. I definitely recommend this to people who love sci/fi and dystopian type stories. It's not heavy on romance--there's barely any at all which I found nice for once. It came about slowly and wasn't rushed or instant.

Hayley 📖🌈💜🌸

I gave this 2 hours and really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't sit through another 11 hours of this damned thing. 
The main girl was kind of annoying, but I don't know if it was the voice or the first person or the actual character? 
This was 100% not for me.

Kayla | @thereaderkayla

Surprisingly I enjoyed this! Dystopian sci-fi novels haven't been my favorite. I enjoyed the characters. The plot lost me a little towards the end. 3.5 stars!

Casandra Sandu

This book was right up my alley. I enjoyed all the scientific parts. Technology, genetics, DNA, gene-hacking, coding. Everything you can wish for in a good Sci-Fi. And there were so many twists and turns that I didn't expect. Every time I thought I knew what was happening, I was wrong. Every time I was beginning to trust somebody, I was wrong. The entire world-building is fascinating and it brings up a unique approach to the apocalyptic-virus scene. Who doesn't like books that truly screw with your mind? I know I do. It took me a long time to finish as I was in a bit of a reading slump, but this book can be devoured in one sitting. Action packed, twisty and delightfully geeky.

Lisa Beasley

Set in a future where humanity has been devastated by a terrible plague and implanted tech is the norm Emily Suvada has created a story which is clever and complex as well as being emotional and gripping. The plot is smart and intricate and I very quickly connected to the characters especially the main character Cat. I don't want to give too much away but I loved the twists and turns and the big plot twists towards the end are superb. I cannot wait for more in this series and I recommend it to anybody who enjoys a gripping and enjoyable dystopian thriller. I found it very hard to put down.

I was granted an arc of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This Mortal Coil

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