One of Us By Craig DiLouie

 

One of Us

By Craig DiLouie

After a plague epidemic creates a series of kids with genetic mutations, most parents who give birth to them give them up to various orphanage homes around the country, where they grow up and are educated.

The majority of the populace despises these kids who have strange deformities or appear animalistic in nature. These kids are also put to work for some of the "normal" people. As a result of the misunderstandings and hatred, some of the plague kids want to rise up against it. And many of them are starting, during puberty, to exhibit powers well beyond mere deformities. After some of them are killed by the home's principal, and others are sent away to become government guinea pigs/slaves, a murder occurs and is blamed on Enoch Bryant, one of the plague kids working on a farm. The other plague kids know this is not true, and when Enoch is murdered they decide now is the time to rise up.

This was an interesting book, and not exactly what I was expecting. I did like it a lot. The characters were mostly teenagers and at times it sort of read like a YA novel, but the story was good and the message was relevant. At times I did feel like it was being overstated, but there were some shocking events I didn't see coming that made the story deeper and more complicated than it appeared at first it would be. That saved it for me, really, from being hokey.

I think this is a 4 star book.