Altered

Publishers Weekly

In Rush’s action-packed debut, first in a planned series, homeschooled 18-year-old Anna Mason has a life ruled by secrecy. Her widower father works for a clandestine organization called the Branch, and four gorgeous genetically altered teenage boys live in the basement laboratory of their New York State farmhouse. Anna feels especially connected to one of the boys, Sam, even though he, like the others, has no memories of life outside his basement cell. When the Branch tries to collect “the units,” chaos erupts, and Sam, Anna, and the others take off on the run. Together, they drive across several states, decoding a trail of clues and bringing Anna and Sam closer than ever. Anna is refreshingly and realistically uncomfortable with the ongoing violence surrounding their escape. Her interactions with the boys (whose somewhat one-note personas—the leader, the smart one, the hothead, and the goofball—can’t help recalling another product of genetic manipulation, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) keep the story moving quickly, along with a steady unfolding of revelations and events. Ages 12–up. Agent: Joanna Volpe, New Leaf Literary and Media. (Jan.)

Romantic Times

"Rush keeps it fresh with this fast-paced novel, full of last-minute surprises and unexpected twists . . . The mysteries laced throughout the action add suspense, making the moments of romance even hotter."

Booklist

"A rapid-fire thriller....Fans of the Hunger Games and Maze Runner series seeking more dystopian titles would likely enjoy this new adventure."

Kirkus Reviews

Ignore the shaky start--within minutes, this medical-engineering thriller will have readers glued to their seats. In the farmhouse upstairs, Anna and her widower dad lead a quiet life. Downstairs, the four surgically altered boys whom Anna has tended and her dad has studied for five years live in comfortable, isolated cells. Home-schooled Anna is isolated, too, her mother's treasured, annotated cookbook their only connection. Though Anna's attached to the boys, even sullen Nick, Sam is the one she sneaks down to see at night. She knows the boys are human lab rats in a project run by the Branch, a private company funded by the government, and dreams of freeing them, but it's Sam who masterminds their escape when Branch agents show up to end the project. Urged by her dad, the boys take Anna with them. With no memory of life before the farmhouse and few clues to guide them to safety, their quest to understand what has happened to them yields fewer answers than questions, especially for Anna, whose own memories increasingly appear suspect. In the desperate race to find answers before the Branch agents find them, Anna clings to what she knows is true: her love for Sam. A surfeit of casual violence detracts from the ending, but this debut's strengths--pacing and plot twists, especially--outweigh the deficits. Riveting. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up—Four hot guys are locked in rooms below Anna's house: Trev (literary, erudite, yoga practitioner); Cas (artistic, funny, sporty); Nick (cynical, grouchy, vain); and Sam (caring, agile, a leader). Now 18, Anna has interacted with "the units" imprisoned in her father's underground lab for five years, and when she's not being homeschooled, baking cookies, or doing combat training, she helps with blood draws and data collection, occasionally sneaking down for midnight chess games. She's developed special ties with Trev and Sam, and a crush is turning into love. The action kicks in when representatives from the Branch (the secret organization overseeing project OP ALPHA) arrive to take the boys to a new location. They turn the tables, kill most of the Branch team, and flee with Anna as willing accomplice. The science behind the "altering" process is vague. Rush often tells readers that the information is "classified," but she does reveal that experiments in genetic alteration have given the boys a special connection and made them "more than human." Their memories were wiped clean in the process, leading to puzzles dealing with coded scars and tattoos. Those expecting hard science fiction will be disappointed, but readers seeking a "teens on the run" plot featuring surprising twists and turns, romantic entanglements, hard stomachs and curved muscles, and innocent-but-mischievous smiles will come away satisfied.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX