Book Review: Vitro

Title: Vitro

Author: Jessica Khoury

Publication Date: January 14, 2014

Publisher: Razorbill

Genre: Science fiction

Pages: 384

Age Rating: Readers over 14

My Opinion: 5/10

Hi, Readers!

       If you happened to read my last post about Origin, you would have discovered how excited I was to read Vitro next.  Now that I've read it... boy, am I disappointed.  Jessica Khoury did such a phenomenal job making Origin a thrilling novel with unique and interesting characters, and I was expecting the same level of writing in the next novel of the Corpus series.  Sadly, Vitro was not up to the same standards.

       Sophie Crue has lived with her dad her entire life while her mother is on Skin Island, in Guam, doing scientific research.  However, out of the blue, Sophie gets a mysterious e-mail from her mother begging her to come to Skin Island ASAP due to an emergency.  Of course, Sophie leaps at the opportunity to visit, and she convinces her childhood friend, Jim, to fly her there on his airplane.  When the two arrive, they instantly realize that there is something mysterious happening on Skin Island.  They encounter a strand of genetically enhanced humans, named Vitros, who imprint on a single person as slaves.  A few of the prototype Vitros have went off the deep end, and they capture Sophie as a ransom to free themselves.  Worst of all, one of the Vitros, Lux, looks exactly like Sophie.  Sophie has to face a number of heart wrenching decisions, and must manage to survive her time on the island of horrors if she wishes to save the lives of the Vitros and herself.

What I would imagine Skin Island looks like

       As you may be able to tell from my summary above, Vitro was a pretty confusing novel.  What I noticed early on was that Khoury tried so hard to make the novel mysterious that she withheld too much information from the readers.  She relied too much on fast-paced action scenes, violence, and evil characters, and she did not put enough focus on the background of Skin Island and its inhabitants.  It seemed as though every chapter was filled with airplane crashes, explosions, guns, and kidnapping scenes.  In my opinion, Khoury should have focused a little bit more on the characters of the novel and their emotions, and less on the action.

Up next... Hopefully I saved
the best for last!

       The characters in Vitro were certainly much less developed than those in Origin.  Khoury attempted to create a backstory between Sophie and Jim where they were childhood friends, but the whole thing seemed pretty implausible.  I found it too unlikely that they would grow up together on a tropical island, get seperated for ten years, and then just happen to meet up again out of the blue.  Guess I need to work on my suspension of disbelief.  Also, I was not particularly fond of most of the characters in the novel, Jim in particular.  They were not very likeable or relatable, and I didn't form an emotional connection with them at all.  One character that I did enjoy reading about was the psychopathic Nicholas, who had a lot of potential to be a deep and unique character, but I felt let down when Khoury only developed him on the surface and made him fairly stereotypical.  

       I wish that Vitro was on the same level stylistically and content-wise as Origin, but it had a completely different vibe.  If you've already read Origin, spare yourself the time and don't bother checking out Vitro.  All problems aside, I am still planning on reading Khoury's third book in the series, Kalahari.  Fingers crossed that Khoury sticks with her guns and has written it comparably to Origin!

Happy reading!