New review! The Infinity Gene (The Butterfly Code/Girl on Fire, #2) by Sue Wyshynski, 3 Cranky Stars

The Infinity Gene by Sue Wyshynski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

**** 3 Cranky Stars ****



I’m sitting here with a heavy heart as I write this review for book 2 of Girl on Fire series. I had high hopes for this sequel but unfortunately there were just a few things I didn’t agree with.



First off, science fiction is a hard genre to write. Or that’s how I think anyway. Why? Because everything in the book will be up for scrutiny as everything will be based on known facts. Paranormal or fantasy has an easier time as readers can just accept abnormal or strange situations as “magical”. The author has an easier time due to artistic license to embellish on the truth. Sci-fi, not so much. Everything will have to be compared to what is “normal” or fact or else things become implausible.



In this series, children are invincible as well as wiser beyond their years. I have 2 kids at home and I have asked friends with kids to be fair in my judgement and all of them agreed with me that the children in these books were doing things beyond their mental, psychological and physical capacity. Let me just clarify that none of the kids in the story had been genetically enhanced.



Another issue was timeline and events. Some of the immortals in the story were capable of turning into superhumans and became super intelligent. Well, actually, this might be acceptable since they had been enhanced after all. But say for instance, a nanny. Before being enhanced, a girl was a nanny, no mention of being a geneticist, computer whiz who can invent top of the line security system that scans credentials and even take a sample of your blood and analyse it within seconds, or any mention that she was also a scientist capable of manipulating cancer cells and finding ways to stop them from mutating. Yet somehow this nanny managed to become this other person after being enhanced and was able to reach that level within less than fifty years. Hmm, I don’t know. I could be wrong with this one but it just didn’t sit well with me.



The dad. If I was the bad guy and I want to force somebody to do something for me, I would go after the family, especially the well-loved dad of that person. Call me a cliché but hey I’m a simple girl. To me it makes sense. Yet the main girl’s dad was in plain sight walking freely, unharmed, untouched and literally ignored by the bad guys.



The genetically enhanced. They’re very intelligent, superior but not very smart and completely governed by their emotions. But I suppose that goes with the plot.



Having said that, the author’s way of writing is engaging. The action sequence rival that of Jason Bourne’s as mentioned in the book. The pacing is fast. The concept unique and the over-all flow of the story hooks you in. Again, as I’ve mentioned, sci-fi is a hard genre to write. Had this been fantasy/paranormal, I wouldn’t even blink an eye and would totally just accept everything the author wrote because it was magical.



Alas, that was not the case.


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