Title: The Predicteds by Christine Seifert
Pages: 342
Release Date: September 1st 2011
Published by: Sourcebooks Fire
Source: Borrowed (Thanks, Precious!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository
Summary (from Goodreads):
Your future is not your own...
"We wanted to know what makes a good kid good and a bad kid bad. Can you blame us for that? We found an astoundingly, marvelously simple answer: The brain isn't so much a complicated machine as it is a crystal ball. If you look into it, you will see everything you want to know."
-Dr. Mark Miliken, senior researcher at Utopia Laboratories
Who will it be?
Will the head cheerleader get pregnant?
Is the student council president a secret drug addict?
The whole school is freaking out about PROFILE, an experimental program that can predict students' future behavior.
The only question Daphne wants answered is whether Jesse will ask her out...but he's a Predicted, and there's something about his future he's not telling her.
Daphne's life changed that day when an on-campus shooting occurred. It was her first day of school and she ended up shoved in a cupboard, uncertain if she will live through the day. Cases like it could have been prevented, according to Utopia Systems. They have developed a system that can predict one's behavior, courtesy of the PROFILE program, and Daphne's school is the lucky place where tests were to be conducted. Daphne was saved by Jesse that day of the shooting, and he's a nice guy, someone she sees herself falling for. But PROFILE tells otherwise, because according to it, Jesse is a potential killer.
One of the things I love about this book is how it easily slips in and out of both the dystopia and contemporary genre and still feel like a wholly good book. Just when you think you're reading a purely contemporary book about a teenager trying to move on with her life after a traumatic event, things like PROFILE sneaks into the story and you're back into a world where technology tries to make living harder than make it simpler.
The Predicteds is very typical. It's composed of your typical teenage groups, teenage drama and angst, even a dysfunctional parent, but surprisingly, the presence of PROFILE gives it an entirely interesting twist that will keep the readers interested to the very end. The tension between Jesse and Daphne was confusing but something you will not be able to get enough of. Granted, it was instant attraction, but Daphne wasn't at all blind to love. She doubted Jesse. And Jesse was a character you thought you already have figured out but not when the secrets he's keeping gets out one by one. A Knight in shining armor with a dark past. Or so they say. There were a lot of moments that just made my heart ache for Daphne, caught between January and Jesse's confusing relationship.
What I liked about Daphne, is that she's not your typical teenager from a not so typical family, who thinks unlike everyone else. Mostly detached and often times unemotional, I find her a bit quirky, especially with her choice of friends. In a school where kids just follow what is dictated to them by their parents, by the school, by PROFILE, she still knew better than to let Technology define Humanity and how she'll interact with the people around her.
The Predicteds raises quite a few questions worth asking and worth answering. How do you live your life knowing that at some point you're destined to commit violence, even murder? Will you let a computer program's choices dictate how you will live? And will someone destined to be evil really change? The Predicteds show just how much technology can affect our daily lives. When used in a wrong way, it can destroy lives just like every other dangerous thing can. On the other hand, The Predicteds also show just how "human" we are. Quick to judge, quick to assume and easily mistrust each other. Flawed. It's even worse because the situation in The Predicteds shows vividly how it can create social, psychological, physical chaos. Friends turn away from friends, parents act irrationally because of fear. Self-preservation, discrimination, cruelty, every single bad thing that can happen surfaces and gets the best of people. When you draw the line between who you think is good and bad, what do you think will happen in the society you live in?
The Predicteds is part romance, part dystopia, part thriller. It's a book that surprised me, from being a typical book at the start to something you can think about, deep and intriguing. Unique, fresh and thoroughly entertaining, The Predicteds is worth a read!
Content (plot, story flow, character):
Shining: Worthy of a Goddess' Love!
Book Cover:
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