Review of Designed For Perfection by Elle Davis
Elle Davis lives in El Dorado Hills, California with her husband and two children. She is a registered nurse and works part time as a Wound Ostomy Specialist. In her free time she enjoys cycling, boating, snow skiing and camping.
Ronan Callahan is not your average teenager. Not only does he have supernatural powers, but he has also been genetically modified before birth. During the first in this coming of age series, Ronan must come to terms with the fact that his parent’s chose a designer baby and unite with other genetically modified youngsters against the government agencies which are out to get them.
Sound cliched? It is and I would definitely have liked a bit more depth/exploration of the whole moral and ethical issues around cloning and tinkering with mother nature, however I am absolutely certain that this book will tick all of the boxes for the intended target audience. I am not normally a big fan of the Young Adult genre, however I was instantly pulled into the story. For all he is initially emotionally detached (because of the personality traits package that his parents foolishly chose for him) he is incredibly likeable and I am sure that most socially awkward kids, even those from less privileged backgrounds would instantly relate to him. The author has also done an exceptional job of creating well rounded young people that even mammy’s like me can relate to! His love interest Cat, is amazing. I love the fact that circumstances have cruelly forced her to deal with bringing up her five year old “gifted” sister. I love her friendship with her gay best friend and most of all I love the sincerity of her relationships with both Ronan and her sister Claire. Likewise five year old Claire with her abilities to telepathically communicate and move objects around is absolutely adorable!
Like so many books that I have read recently, the author has chosen to write this as a multi -viewpoint novel, giving alternating first person accounts from both Ronan and Cat, and I am going to say no more on the subject other than the fact that she handles the whole viewpoint issue well.
I have to say that I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second half as I felt that as the book wore on, the author went into cliche overload, so much so that I started to switch off. She has however, built in plenty of hooks to keep young readers eagerly looking out for book two, and YES, I will download a copy when it becomes available as I am curious to see where the story goes moving forwards. If I could offer up one suggestion to the author it would be to really focus on the unit of Ronan, Claire and Cat and not be tempted to delve too much into the old bunch of teenagers escaping from secure military units and kicking shit out of every possible government agency routine…
All in all, this was was a relatively fast paced young adult romance, and even though I know from her bio that she leads an incredibly busy life, the author must never be tempted to give up on her writing!
Designed For Perfection is available from Amazon and you can find out more about the author at:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18700490-designed-for-perfection
