“The Remedy”

 

Author: Suzanne Young

The 1^st book in “The Program” trilogy, I’d found to be quite interesting despite its lack of fantasy. Picking up this book wasn’t part of my plan when I arrived at the airport…but I had some time on my hands, and I was desperate for reading material. At first glance in the available book selections, I wanted to read “Rogue” by Julia Kagawa from her new series “Talon”… but “Rogue” is book #2, and I’ve yet to read book #1. Reluctantly, I passed it by, and reached for what I considered to be a wild card. I wasn’t familiar with the author, and I had no research to impact my judgment on its story quality. As long as I had a book in hand for my flight, I was good.

~“A Closer”~

Job Definition: Being hired to temporarily take on the role of a deceased love on to help bring peace in the lives of grieving families.

Rule #1:

Don’t grow attached to the families of the deceased!

17-year-old Quinlan Mckee is a Closer. Since the age of 7, she’s been hired to recreate the appearances of more girls than she’d like to admit. Changing your looks, studying journals, imitating habits from photos and videos, to become nearly the clone of a dead person isn’t easy. The job pays extremely well, and in the end, you’ve brought peace to the lives of so many families. Quinn is skilled, probably one of the best closers around, but with this skill comes the danger of losing yourself. As Quinn takes on the longest assignment she’s ever faced, she starts confusing her own past with the memories of other roles she’s had to portray. But with all this pressure weighing down on her shoulders, Guinn experiences the life of Catalina Barnes to be nearly the perfect life she’s ever known. With this new role of imitating Catalina, Quinn breaks the #1 rule of a closer: Don’t get attached to the families of the deceased! Complications had arrived when she found herself bonding with Catalina’s boyfriend, and soon found herself to be more at home with Catalinas parents then she’s ever felt in both real life, or the life of assignments… There’s just one problem… She’s pretending to be their DEAD daughter and girlfriend. Would it be so bad to quit her job as a Closer and be Catalina forever? But as the truth about Catalina’s death becomes uncovered, it seems there’s a much larger scale of danger at hand.

This book was an easy read, and I did enjoy it to a small degree. However, I found all the drama to be quite pathetic, and lame, considering the unrealistic circumstances of Quinn’s “Occupation”. Plus, it was full of bad language, making it a book I wouldn’t want to read again simply for that one reason. Also, it was hard to relate to a character when she doesn’t even know who she is. It’s hard enough trying to relate when all the drama is so unrealistic, let alone a wishy-washy main character. I understand why the author wrote Quinn the way she did… it’s quite difficult to write such a character as complicated as Quinn, and to do it right is a task that’s nearly impossible in my opinion. Henceforth, I didn’t like this book all that much, and won’t be reading the rest of “The Program” trilogy.