Origin

Author: Jessica Khoury
Goodreads Rating: 3.87
My Rating: 4 Stars
Pages: 400
Reviewed by: Nicole

Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home--and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.
Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia's origin--a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.
Origin is a beautifully told, shocking new way to look at an age-old desire: to live forever, no matter the cost.

I got this book when I went to BEA12. This was one of the titles that I went there knowing that I wanted, and I'm beyond glad that I was able to snatch a copy.


I thoroughly enjoyed the book especially the epilogue which I felt was very clever. I'm normally not a scifi girl, but this book had the right amount of science in it for me to be comfortable with it. There were times that they would be talking about how science works, that my eyes sort of glazed over, but it was so worth pushing past those parts to watch Pia grow from this perfect human computer into a real girl with feelings and emotions and a moral compass.

I think the difficult part in reading this was that Pia was raised with a very scientific approach to things, and so a lot of the events in the book that people were disgusted with really needed to be looked at remembering that she was only a product of her environment. You know that whole Nature v. Nurture argument? Pia was the perfect example of how your environment and influence who you become.

I was expecting a different sort of book, but I found myself really liking Pia and her discovery of herself and the truth about who and what she was. It was a really great story as she struggles with a lot of the issues that modern scientists face. The ethics of animal testing, the ethics of trying to find immortality among other things. 

I loved Pia and Eio and how they discovered each other and how Pia discovered that there was life further then Little Cam, the compound where she lived. I loved the introduction of Harriet, a new scientist who planted the seeds of doubt in her mind. What I did find weird was that Pia called everyone in Little Cam aunt or uncle, including her own father. I found that bizarre because she even called her Uncle Will which was a little confusing.

All in all this was a great read. There were some scenes that were difficult, but all in all it was very good quick read. Definitely one to check out even if Science Fiction isn't your thing.