Imitation by Heather Hildenbrand

Note: I received a free copy of Imitation by Heather Hildenbrand from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I chose Imitation, the story of Ven who is an Imitation/clone, of a privileged young woman because it reminded me of the movie The Island. And in a way it was very similar. There is a whole building, called Twig City, where the Imitations are shown footage of the Authentic they have been created to look like. They keep their figures in shape according to what their Authentic looks like and they know little of the outside world beyond what they must do to help their Authentic. That includes being around if their Authentic needs an organ transplant or if they need to stand in for their Authenics during dangerous situations.

The latter (going undercover) is the case for Ven, an Imitation of Raven Rogen, the daughter of a man very important to the science world. Only she finds that the world as she knows it is not what she expected when she realizes her best interests don't matter to most anyone and in fact, society as a whole,does not even see the Imitations as real people.

So, in the realm of most futuristic/slightly dystopian, a rebellion is spoken of and begun though not much more than basic planning is started in the first novel. That's why I gave it only three stars, because this is definitely not a stand alone novel in any sense of the term. The story isn't complete and I don't like that. Even if there are more books to come in a series there should be some type of resolution and Ven finding out more about the rebellion is not a good enough one.

One complaint though: in the clone training center they are shown some footage of their Authentic's lives. But they aren't allowed to really experience any of the stuff for themselves. How are you supposed to act natural when riding in cars and elevators or talking to boys when you've never done any of that? That does not make any sense!

But other than that I really liked the book and will likely buy the second one when it comes out next month.