YA Review: Uninvited by Sophie Jordan

SUMMARY: Davy had everything—a terrific boyfriend, the homecoming crown, a bright future at Juilliard—but when her genetic tests come back positive for Homicidal Tendency Syndrome, she loses it all. Uninvited from her prestigious school and avoided by her friends and family, she is placed in a special class with other "carriers" who are treated like the murderers they someday might become.

Only Sean, a fellow HTS carrier, can relate to her new life and tells her that she alone controls her actions—not the code embedded in her DNA. But even if she can learn to trust him, can Davy trust herself?

OPINION: I was enamored with this concept from the first time I heard about it - how awful would it be to know for a fact you have a higher chance of becoming a killer? I often think it's bad enough doing the cancer genetic testing, Huntington's, etc, those sorts of things, where you find out for sure you are more likely to end up suffering from that. Correlate that to this concept, and the different implications, and I was hooked before I ever picked up the book.

In a lot of ways, I have to say, this book is maybe a bit slower. To start, it's very much about Davy figuring out how to handle suddenly being cast aside, and the echoing of so many eras in our history as a result was chilling. This is one of those books that, despite not being solid contemporary/realistic fiction, is too realistic to be comfortable. Can I imagine everything in this book actually happening? Absolutely. I really loved Davy's character. She's a good girl, a privileged girl, with so much ahead of her, at least until she's uninvited from her school as a result of being a carrier. As everything is stripped away from her, and even her own family has some tension there now, it's both painful and realistic to read. Still, there is a lot of strength to Davy as she goes through all of this, but what I loved the most is how her fear is present, even has some element of hindering her, yet she also pushes through it and doesn't let it get the best of her.

And Sean. Oh. Sean. I love this boy, so hard. He's so determined to fight back against everything happening, even while it seems impossible to do so. He's that quiet, solid sort of guy, with mystery about him and a hard exterior, yet such a genuinely good heart inside. This boy really got to me and I want nothing more than to see him come out okay. He takes Davy under his wing so to speak, and there is definitely some romance though it's not as forefront as in Jordan's prior series. In a lot of ways, I feel like these are two people who need each other right now, who found each other at the right time, though what that means in the future I don't know.

There is so much realism infused throughout this book, and as someone who reads more contemporary than anything, I completely love it. Still, the sci-fi bend to it is scarily believable to me, and despite that niggle in my mind that this is something not in our world, how easy it is to imagine had me both hooked and uncomfortable. This book has so many layers and is brilliant in ways I can't describe without spoiling anything, but I highly recommend it for fans of all genres.