My Rating ~ Four and a half Stars
RELEASE DATE: 9 March 2021
Format: E-ARC
Pages: 352
Publisher: Flux North Star Editions
Blurb
Sixteen-year-old Nate is a GEM—Genetically Engineered Medi-tissue created by the scientists of Gathos City as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung rot ravaging the population. As a child, he was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and into the Withers—a quarantined, lawless region. Nate manages to survive by using his engineering skills to become a Tinker, fixing broken tech in exchange for food or a safe place to sleep. When he meets Reed, a kind and fiercely protective boy that makes his heart race, and his misfit gang of scavengers, Nate finds the family he’s always longed for—even if he can’t risk telling them what he is.
But Gathos created a genetic failsafe in their GEMs—a flaw that causes their health to rapidly deteriorate as they age unless they are regularly dosed with medication controlled by Gathos City. As Nate’s health declines, his hard-won freedom is put in jeopardy. Violence erupts across the Withers, his illegal supply of medicine is cut off, and a vicious attack on Reed threatens to expose his secret. With time running out, Nate is left with only two options: work for a shadowy terrorist organization that has the means to keep him alive, or stay — and die — with the boy he loves.
Review
Thank you so much to Flux for sending me a copy of this book, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review!
In a city left a wasteland, after the deadly lung-rot spread through it, Nate ekes out a living selling tech, to help his small gang of friends survive. None of them know he’s a GEM, someone genetically created for their blood to cure lung rot. If anyone knew what he was, they’d turn him back over to his creators, to be drained for the rest of his short life. Although, his life may be short anyway. Without a certain remedy, Nate and GEMs like him always die young and the remedy is running out.
I love a good dystopian book and Fragile Remedy managed to be both nail biting and just plain entertaining. I loved Nate’s gang of unlikely friendship and his complicated relationship with the man who took him in when he was first found. With the city full of people addicted to a drug called Chem, barely any food and ‘Breakers’ looking for people like Nate around every corner, the Withers, where he lives, is a dangerous, desperate place. The actions of the Chem addicted were a little over the top, but that’s the only real criticism I had.
Was Fragile Remedy a believable dystopian story? Not really. But was it fun? Absolutely!
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