In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.Īutumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart their mothers are still best friends. The traditional cliffhanger ending leaves readers hungry for the next course. She and Zane know precisely where she stands in the appearance hierarchy. Struggling to unite the disparate strands of her identity, Ariane’s an appealing original who (in a welcome departure from YA orthodoxy) does not have beauty-queen looks of which she’s modestly unaware. Ariane’s long-blocked powers come roaring back when Rachel pushes her buttons. Jacobs’ granddaughter, Rachel, the plot’s evil catalyst, into her scheme to humiliate Ariane, Zane instead is intrigued and attracted.

Popular, athletic and good-looking Zane coaxes her into revealing herself, while hiding from her the wounds inflicted by his mother’s abandonment and police-chief father’s contempt.

Following strict rules and hiding in plain sight, Ariane’s evaded capture for a decade, but GTX is closer than she realizes.

Jacobs’ plans to mold her into a designer weapon (her abilities include mind reading and telekinesis). A likable science-fiction romance features strong co-protagonists who know where they come from, but not who they are.īorn in a GenTex lab with human and extraterrestrial DNA, Ariane gives new meaning to “test tube baby.” A lab employee, now her adoptive dad, rescued her from a nightmarish, lab-rat existence, thwarting Dr.

Project Paper Doll by Stacey Kade