Origin

There are a lot of things I expected from Ori­gin. Mys­tery, a jun­gle back­drop and even a bit of romance. But, wow. I did not expect to be grab­bing the edge of my seat, turn­ing page after page in antic­i­pa­tion. How­ever, this novel is not for the faint of heart due to a few shock­ing scenes. But care­fully placed gen­tler moments are woven in with the call of the jun­gle. Between the bitter-sweet blos­som of first love and the nail-biting storyline, I was robbed of pre­cious sleep... I was captivated.

The Char­ac­ters:
Pia, our main char­ac­ter, is immor­tal. She was cre­ated and raised by a group of sci­en­tist with the intent to create a new human race at any cost. Noth­ing can pierce her skin. She has height­ened hear­ing, sight, smell and speed. At first glance it may seem like she's just going to turn out to be your run of the mill Mary Sue, but Pia has her weak­ness, nor­mal strength and endurance along with her stub­born­ness that at times really frustrated me, but I enjoyed see­ing her grow. She lives a very shel­tered life because she has never left Lit­tle Cam and she is curi­ous about the out­side world. Unfor­tu­nately, the sci­en­tist never allow her to know any­thing about the world. She's never seen a map, TV, Inter­net, heard music, etc. She's been told that all those things are a dis­trac­tion from her des­tiny: To cre­ate even more immor­tals like her for the bet­ter­ment of the human race. And for a time she believes them until one day an oppor­tu­nity presents itself, she explores the jun­gle and meets Eio, who makes her com­pletely ques­tion every­thing she has been taught.

Speak­ing of Eio, when we are first intro­duced to him he imme­di­ately reminded me of some­one. Remember Mimi-Siku from Jun­gle 2 Jun­gle? Eio, the love inter­est, jun­gle boy, half Ai'oan. He's hon­est and kind. And unlike Pia, he sees the dan­ger of Lit­tle Cam and urges her to aban­don the facil­ity. Even when she resists over and over, deter­mined to remain there, he doesn't aban­don her. He shows her things she's never seen, things that don't fit into her per­ceived per­fect, sci­en­tific ideals. And while he does make a state­ment early on that could be seen as misog­y­nis­tic (telling Pia she needed a big strong man to walk her through the jun­gle), to me it felt more like him try­ing to make a good impres­sion and be chival­rous. He's from a cul­ture that is vir­tu­ally cut off from mod­ern soci­ety (Lit­tle Cam­bridge excluded), so the inten­tion of the state­ment never felt insult­ing. I could always tell he truly cared about her. Every time Eio spoke to Pia, I could hear Mimi's voice in my head. I could just pic­ture his raw, hon­est facial expres­sions behind every sen­tence. They were so sim­ple, but so much emo­tion was packed into it.

Quote: "I will climb that fence, if you ask it of me, and I will bring you out."

Romance:
This was an inter­est­ing read­ing jour­ney for me because Ori­gin tech­ni­cally has a big thing that usually doesn't mesh well with me in books: Insta-love. I can only remem­ber one other book where it didn't bother me and that was Daugh­ter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Tayler, which I LOVED. Books like these really affirm my belief that there isn't nec­es­sar­ily any­thing *wrong* with a story that fea­tures fast building love as long as the relation­ship is believ­able to the reader. For me, it was. Even though the book does take place in, perhaps, a lit­tle over a week, it felt much longer than that. Pia and Eio meet in a very unique cir­cum­stance so it's hard to com­pare their courtship to others. I felt that Eio and Pia really loved each other.

A big part of me believ­ing in the romance was due to Khoury's prose. The scenes between Pia and Eio were del­i­cately crafted and I'm a sucker for pretty prose. It wasn't the dreaded pur­ple prose. It was simple and its sub­tlety in the heat of the moment had me feel­ing some kinda way.

Quote: "I think of my eter­nal peo­ple. Of broth­ers and sis­ters and friends who will never die. An immor­tal family, untouched by pain and death, know­ing only life and love and beauty. I try to imag­ine it, try to see their faces in my mind... but all I see is a blue-eyed boy sit­ting by the river, giv­ing me the stars."

It was like watch­ing Mimi-Siku giv­ing Karen the pot. *wipes tear*

World build­ing:
The begin­ning of Ori­gin def­i­nitely sets the tone for the rest of the book and if the first scene both­ers you, chances are this book might not be for you. There are a few ani­mal test­ing scenes where ani­mals are harmed. But the gen­eral tone of the MC and book was that this was frowned upon so it wasn't endorsed. But since Pia lives in that kind of envi­ron­ment where the sci­en­tist are look­ing for immor­tal­ity, it makes sense that they would have ani­mal test sub­jects. Pia hated that they ran those tests on ani­mals and never wanted to be apart of it. Nev­er­the­less, it is there and it could be disturbing for some readers.

I love when I can tell that an author has done their home­work and Khoury did just that. The Ama­zon­ian rain for­est is well-developed and vivid. You can see the detail used espe­cially when plants and insects are described. At one point I had to google one of the insects men­tion, the titan beetle. *shud­ders* I'll never look at a bee­tle the same way again.

Final Verdict: By the end of Ori­gin I real­ized some­thing about myself. I often com­plain and com­plain about how stand­alones are almost non-existent in YA Land, but this time I actu­ally found myself wish­ing it was a series. The jun­gle was done with me, but I wasn't done with the jun­gle. So if you are look­ing for a Sci-Fi type mystery, I'd say give Ori­gin a try. It just might sur­prise you.

Origin brings the reader into the world of Little Cam with ease and a flawless description. The plot is original, filled with action and romance. It builds suspense as readers delve deeper into the Amazon with the heroine, Pia. Pia, is immortal, and at 17 has the world on her shoulders. She knows something important depends on her and her alone, yet she is protected from the outside world by the scientists in Little Cam.

The book questions the power and importance of immortality as Pia and Eio search for the truth behind Pia's origin. Khoury balances the intrigue and romance perfectly. One does not outshine the other, making this a book that could appeal to both male and female readers.

Origin will keep any reader hooked. Definitely a must a must read for the fall. Great for both younger readers and adults!

I was really excited to be able to grab a galley of ORIGIN at ALA. I read the teaser in the BEA BUZZ that was available on Netgalley. That teaser alone made me want to read this story!

This is a beautifully written futuristic YA that brings up the whole question: What would you do to achieve immortality? How far would you go?

Pia is an immortal seventeen year old. She's sheltered from the rest of the world somewhere deep in the Amazon rain forest. I almost sense that the scientists there consider her kind of like a pet. She's special and they promise her that she'll become like a god and have her own kind. But she has to wait. During a storm, a hole appears in the electrical fence. Curious, she ventures out and encounters Eio, a very cute native. Emotions swept through her driving her to be around Eio even through the rational part of her warns her against it. She calls this her 'wild' Pia. She knows she should ignore the promptings to continue meeting in secret with Eio but she can't.

I was hooked right at the beginning. Though I have to admit the whole test with the poor bird at first kind of turned me off but then I realized how symbolic it was. Pia lives in a building that is made of glass. Just like the bird she can see outside but she can't escape. Little does she know that that test will lead up to many more harder ones that will test her own humanity.

I love forbidden romances and ORIGIN doesn't disappoint! The chemistry between Eio is intense and magnetic. I believed that she'd feel a sudden overwhelming attraction to this stranger. Eio shows her a whole different world within the jungle. Pia is drawn to this forbidden way of life while struggling to make sense of it all.

I loved how Khoury shows how Pia's so-called perfect world shatters with the revelations that happen around Eio's appearance. Little flaws appear that are hard to ignore. Each one has Pia look at her world in a different way.

Add to that the mystery behind Pia. What is the secret the scientists are hiding from her? And why is she the key to creating a whole new race of immortals?

Pia has to make some very hard choices in order to achieve what she feels is her purpose in life. The scientists around her aren't all the cliche 'mad' scientists. Harriet helps Pia with her own deception when she arrives to Little Cam. All have their own secrets.

There's a lot to love about this futuristic tale that is so much more than just another cloning story. I can tell the author did her research. The jungle setting is lush. Pia goes on her own heroine's journey and the denoucement at the end is very satisfying.

Set in the lush Amazon, this story is guaranteed to have you pondering it's message of the tough costs of immortality with characters you want to stay with. Add a touch of forbidden love. What's not to love?