Book Review: Uninvited by Sophie Jordan






The Scarlet Letter meets Minority Report in bestselling author Sophie Jordan's chilling new novel about a teenage girl who is ostracized when her genetic test proves she's destined to become a murderer.
When Davy Hamilton's tests come back positive for Homicidal Tendency Syndrome (HTS)-aka the kill gene-she loses everything. Her boyfriend ditches her, her parents are scared of her, and she can forget about her bright future at Juilliard. Davy doesn't feel any different, but genes don't lie. One day she will kill someone.
Only Sean, a fellow HTS carrier, can relate to her new life. Davy wants to trust him; maybe he's not as dangerous as he seems. Or maybe Davy is just as deadly (goodreads).


I chose an audiobook format for this book, mostly because the narrator was Rebecca Gibel and I absolutely adored her narration of Splintered and Unhinged, thankfully her performance did not disappoint. Gibel's voice aids Sophie Jordan in her dystopian tale of the other, and what are we risking by containing said "other."

Plot: What caught my eye about this title was the idea that the impulse to kill another human being can be isolated by a gene. I'm happy to say that this novel did not disappoint and I can't wait to see how Jordan expands on the government's treatment of these imprinted individuals in the concluding novel. The pacing for this is perfect and Sophie Jordan took Davy's journey a lot further than I had expected. You start by experiencing a the day in the life of Davy Hamilton, perfect grades, perfect boyfriend, perfect life. That all falls to pieces when she gets word of her HTS status, and you get to experience her fall from social acceptance. The book really got interesting in the last act as the government started to take more drastic measurements against HTS carriers. One thing that really helped keep the story interesting were the random transcripts/letters/conversations regarding Davy's family, occurrences of HTS-carriers committing crimes, and the government's plan for HTS-carriers. 

Characters: I liked all of the characters from this novel. Davy Hamilton started off being somewhat unlikable because she's got the "how could this happen to perfect ME?" attitude in the beginning. She kind of reminded me of Piper Chapman from Orange is the New Black. Davy's love interest, Sean, also interested me; he had an interesting past and had such a dark perspective on life. I just wanted to hold him and tell him that everything will be better.  Davy and Sean's love story was also very sweet; it progressed naturally and was never in-your-face-mushy-love-story. Thank God. 

Setting: This is a very realistic novel. What do you think the government would do if they found they could weed through DNA and find the serial killers? Yeah, it'd be some GitMo Bay stuff. Uninvited takes place in three general settings and it wasn't until the final setting that I started to get a dystopian feel from this novel. I say this because the entire novel sounded like a natural response to HTS carriers, but of course it all escalated quite quickly. 

Audiobook Performance: I know I'm not an audiobook expert but I LOVE me some Rebeca Gibel. I really love the different voices she has all the characters and her delivery is perfect. You can hear the fear in Sean's voice and how distraught Davy is. In terms of performance alone, I give the audio book 4/5. 

Short n Sweet: Uninvited is a great novel for any dystopian fan that will get you invested in this world and has you guessing what happens next. The characterization is strong and you will be rooting for Sean and Davy from the moment they lock eyes on each other. I can't wait for the final installment!


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