Review of Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaithersburg

Release Date: September 16, 2014

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Page Count: 352

Format: e-ARC

Genre: YA 

When Cate Benson was a kid, her sister, Violet, died. Two hours after the funeral, Cate’s family picked up Violet’s replacement. Like nothing had happened. Because Cate’s parents are among those who decided to give their children a sort of immortality—by cloning them at birth—which means this new Violet has the same smile. The same perfect face. Thanks to advancements in mind-uploading technology, she even has all of the same memories as the girl she replaced.
She also might have murdered the most popular girl in school.
At least, that’s what the paparazzi and the anti-cloning protestors want everyone to think: that clones are violent, unpredictable monsters. Cate is used to hearing all that. She’s used to defending her sister, too. But Violet has vanished, and when Cate sets out to find her, she ends up in the line of fire instead. Because Cate is getting dangerously close to secrets that will rock the foundation of everything she thought was true.
In a thrilling debut, Stefanie Gaither takes readers on a nail-biting ride through a future that looks frighteningly similar to our own time and asks: how far are you willing to go to keep your family together?

*an e-ARC of this book was given to me via Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and honest review*

Falls the Shadow was my first approval from Simon & Schuster (last year) on Edelweiss. At the same time I was 50/50 on whether or not to even request and read it in the first place. Unfortunately, I had to DNF when I was about a quarter of the way finished with it. The cover and description were what drew me to the book in the first place but the book itself just couldn't manage to pull me in. Sci-Fi, cloning, new technology, I'm always interested in books with those elements but Falls The Shadow didn't turn out to be one of those. The plot and characters weren't interesting in my opinion and Cate just annoyed me. The setting was somewhat OK, still could have been improved. One thing I will admit however is that compared to most of my DNF books before this one was slightly better and so earned two stars instead of one star. Many YA readers will probably enjoy Falls The Shadow but for me it will be put in the DNF bookshelf.

2/5 - DNF