GENES – Mary Ting

Where do I even begin? This series has been incredible, to say the least. I finished the first two books in a few hours and this one was no exception. It was spectacular and captivating and I couldn’t take my eyes off the pages. I can’t even tell you which one was my favorite out of the three so far, they were all so amazing. 

Plot

With Ava back with the rebels, their one goal is to bring down ISAN. She learns of some valuable information about a secret ISAN facility and where it is, but before she can take down the facility, the rebels must find and help a group of girls who show superpowers without the use of the Helix drug. 

As rebel forces join, Ava and her team take on their most difficult task yet while also dealing with the destruction of their home base, caused by a traitor within. 

Ava must make the choice between keeping her friends safe, or risking only her life. 

Characters

Once again I have to say that Ava has developed into a character with a lot more to fight for. She mentions in the book that her feelings towards her friends are feelings that she’d have with family and although they aren’t related by blood, they are her family in every sense of the word. Not only has she grown from the ISAN soldier who kills just because her superiors said to, but she now has a team that she trusts and relies on to get her through the day and all of her serious missions. I think that as a character, Ava’s development is super cool to see, and I love how she’s become less of a cold-hearted soldier with nothing to fight for, to being someone who cares about others and wants what’s best for her friends. Along with this, we see her powers develop too which is really interesting, especially since we learn about who Ava’s twin is. It’s clear that in the next book(s) Ava’s power will become something she never expected and I’m really excited to see that develop. 

Rhett has always been one of my favorite characters and it was pretty cool to his point of view throughout significant times in the book. Of course, his love for Ava is unwavering as always and I love their relationship so much. “Whatever it takes” has the power to either make me laugh or cry now! We can also see how much Ava relies on Rhett to keep her steady, and how insane he goes without her. His number one priority throughout the entire book is “I gotta get to my girl”, and it’s soooooo cute! 

“Right beside her was where he belonged. Anywhere with her was home.”

Again I have to say that I need to know more about Reyna! I kind of inferred that Reyna was a little jealous of Ava’s friendship with Brooke since Reyna was originally Ava’s best friend, however, we don’t see enough of Reyna’s past. There are little things here and there that we find out about her like she has a superpower that’s like a bubble shield? That’s super cool in my opinion, but I want to know more! She seems like a character with so much potential I just feel like I need her to open up a bit more so I can see who she really is and everything she’s been through. 

Ozzie is adorable! He’s just such a little teddy bear. In the last book he admits to his feelings of missing Ava and I saw him open up a bit and in this book he opened up even more. I love his character and everything he is. He’s just such a softie and we also see him develop a relationship with a character that I’ve loved for the past two books as well and honestly I loved every second of it!

I also want to mention Gene. To be completely honest, he is kind of psychotic. He scared me sometimes by his weird attitude towards Ava and his little riddles and I think that’s exactly what the author wanted. He was an amazingly well-written character and he had me completely fooled. I’m not going to mention too much since I’m not going to spoil anything too serious, but wow. 

I’m not going go into detail about all of the characters (because there were a lot of characters), but I’ll definitely mention a few more like Brooke, who I’ve always adored and her bubbly personality always makes me laugh; Tamara, who I can’t get enough of and how awesome her knife throwing skills are; Momo, because how adorable is she!

Setting

This book was kind of all over the place. We did mostly stay in the East territory, but we got to see the Black Market, more of Hope City, and some of the ISAN facility. 

The Black Market seemed like one of those sketchy areas where all types of shady stuff went down. Obviously that’s what it’s supposed to be like and I definitely got the creeps from it. We met a few characters there and a few of them were pretty nice, but overall, not a place I’d love to visit!

Hope City has always been beautiful to me. Yeah, there are crumbling buildings and it’s not really up to standard for a home, but it’s Hope City and it’s beautiful because the people give it Hope. They’ve made it their home and I think it’s absolutely wonderful to see that. 

Finally we see a bit of the ISAN facility and well, I didn’t like it to say the least. It sounded like a huge lab with doctors in white coats, and patients screaming. It wasn’t welcoming and it didn’t seem like a nice place, not that it’s supposed to. It just isn’t a place I’d ever ever like to see. 

Writing

Once again I was blown away by Mary Ting and her writing style. It’s exactly the kind of writing you’d want in a fast paced story like this. The intensity kept me on edge the entire time I was reading the book and I couldn’t put it down, afraid I’d miss something! I finished it in a few hours again because I just couldn’t take my eyes off the pages and I wanted more, more more. 

I was captivated by each of the characters and their stories, I could imagine everything in my head, I felt every single thing that the characters felt. 

In Conclusion… 

I can’t believe the ending from this book, I can’t really believe any of it to be honest. This was such an incredible book that I couldn’t put it down and I need more! I can’t wait to read the next book (CODE) and learn more about the story and each of the characters!

Rating: 5/5⭐