In the Garden of Iden

Kage Baker
In the Garden of Iden Cover

WOGF - Review #1

KaraAyako
1/17/2013
Email

I was so excited about this book when I first started. The world building is phenomenal. In the future, a company (really, The Company) has discovered both time travel and immortality. The immortality is limited, though, and can only be bestowed on children. The Company uses its time travel abilities to go back in time and create immortal children who are then indoctrinated into its ways and made its agents. Super interesting, right? There are so many places this could go. I even recommended this book to a few people after just a few chapters--I should've waited.

Out of NOWHERE (and I mean, actually, nowhere), we go from a science fiction book to a YA romance one. Our protagonist switches, in one sentence, from loathing and being frightened of mortals to falling in love with a stranger. All pretenses of science fiction are gone. The philosophical and moral questions being grappled with take a back seat to the poorly written romance.

Even our genius protagonist (The Company turns the children into geniuses and provide them with all the knowledge of all the ages) turns into a ditz in the face of love. It starts snowing, and she says, "Where did all the feathers come from?" Yes, that's our genius.

The book picked up again at the very end. I almost gave this three stars but just couldn't do it given how ridiculous the BULK of the book was. It's such a shame. This had so much promise.