The Trials by Stacey Kade

The conclusion to Kade's Project Paper Dolls series is an exciting novel that leaves readers engaged.

The Trials opens with Ariane Tucker back at GTX preparing for the trials starting in two days somewhere in the Chicago area. The trials are between three companies, Dr. Jacob's GenTex, Dr. David Laughlin's Laughlin Integrated and Dr. Emerson St. John's Emerson Technology to determine which of the human/alien hybrids created by these companies is the best. The winner will secure a lucrative government contract to create a line of supersoldiers, while the losers will either die in the competition or be destroyed afterwards. Ariane will represent GTX, while Laughlin Integrated will have the communal hybrids, Ford and Carter. Who Emerson Technology will send remains a mystery.

Ariane's friend, Zane Bradshaw is dead, left bleeding out in the parking lot where Ariane was caught between Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Laughlin. Devastated at his loss, Ariane is determined to kill to end the program, destroying all of the hybrids including herself and the scientists who created them. Ariane considers that her true opponent is Ford, who looks like her and is possibly her clone. She feels sadness at the fact that she must kill Ford, who like her, is innocent. "I couldn't let it be Ford. This had to end. Jacobs and Laughlin, they couldn't be allowed to keep using us, taking from us."

While waiting for the trials to begin, Ariane has been honing some of her alien abilities such as controlling various objects at a time and having to deal with Rachel Jacob's constant presence by her glass cell. Rachel reveals to Ariane that Zane's body has never been found and that it never showed up at the hospital. Ariane assumes that either Jacobs or Laughlin covered up his death.

The next day, Ariane discovers that a meeting between all of the competitors has been set up prior to the trials. Dr. Jacobs dresses Ariane in a shirt and jeans from her home where she lived with Mark Tucker, her "father". Ariane is taken to the Manderlay Hotel where Jacobs dresses her in a red, oversized UW-Madison sweatshirt. The trial will consist of tracking and identifying an assigned target. They are to find the target, whose photograph they will be given, confirm the identity and transmit a photo and then await further instructions. They are told the target will be within the city limits for the next forty-eight hours and has no idea that they are being hunted. This revelation surprises Ariane who assumed that they would simply fight one another.

The meeting reveals that Ford and Carter will be part of McLaughlin's team. But the bigger surprise is that Emerson St. John has two entries, a former soldier, Adam, and a special model,  Zane Bradshaw. St. John states that his method does not involve growing alien/human hybrids from scratch but enhancing humans with alien genetic material. Ariane is horrified to see that Zane has telekenetic abilities and is able to contact her telepathically to arrange a meeting the following morning.

Unknown the Ariane is that Zane was saved by Dr. St. Emerson, who injected him with a virus  designed to deliver and insert alien DNA into his human DNA, thus enhancing him.The DNA-altering virus, RSTS47 healed Zane's bullet wound and internal injuries in a few days and also gave Zane some of the abilities characteristic of the alien DNA. However, unlike Adam, who has been turned into a supersoldier, Zane's body has not been coping well with the virus-altered DNA.

Dr. Emerson, working with Justine from the Department of Homeland Security, hoped to use Zane to be able to get one of the alien/human hybrids that have been created. The Project Paper Dolls had been funded by the Department of Defense but the DHS wanted to use Ariane not as a test subject, but as an expert resource. However, Emerson and Justine do not want Adam to be the prime candidate; instead they believe Zane with his previous relationship with Ariane has the best chance of convincing her to join them. This enrages Adam who only reveals that Zane's "target" is a guy.

Meanwhile, Ariane cannot understand why Zane is involved in the trials and she wonders if Zane is still the boy she knew back at Wingate. She and Jacobs believe that Emerson hopes to distract Ariane by the presence of Zane, allowing Ford to take the lead. Ariane's envelope leads her to believe that the target is a college age girl. Jacobs tells her that her position will be monitored at all times using the GPS in her phone as well as a black triangle that monitors vitals. He also shows Ariane a picture of her mother, who carried her for six months and tells her that if she does not cooperate there might be problems for her.

Ariane meets Zane in the hotel hallway as he requested, allowing him to explain how Emerson saved him with his DNA-carrier virus which he calls NuStasis and to reassure her that he is still the same Zane. He also tells her that They also encounter Ford who wants tells them that Carter has been removed from the trials and will remain safe if Ford wins and she warns Ariane to stay away from the target. Unable to tell her about Justine's offer, Zane arranges an second meeting at an eatery. He arrives to find Justine and Ariane have already met and not in a friendly way.

Justine reveals that she has been working with Dr. St. John for the last seven years and that she's part of the Department of Homeland Security. She tells Ariane that they are interested not in using her as a  weapon but as a technical advisor and reveals that the remnants of the Roswell spacecraft are somehow connected to the alien DNA. Justine tells her that in exchange, they are willing to offer Ariane a chance to live a mostly normal life, attending school but having a security team. Ariane refuses Justine's offer believing that instead of freedom she will always be in a cage of her own making.  Ariane also knows she has to end the experiments by Laughlin and Jacobs especially when Justine reinterates that this in not her primary concern. In an attempt to convince Ariane, Justine reveals that there are have been further sightings of UFO's clustered near the locations of the alien/human hybrids. The UFO's appear to be similar to the type of craft recovered at Roswell and Justine tells Ariane that they believe they are searching for the source of the living alien tissue. Justine indicates the the DHS believes the Roswell technology has a genetic component - that it is functional if it interacts with the living alien tissue, tissue that makes up part of Ariane.

Once Ariane understands what Justine's group wants she begins to seriously consider her offer, but she is disturbed that the trials will continue for Ford and Carter and the target. However Zane and Ariane discover that everyone has been given different targets. Ariane's target is Adam's sister, while Adam's target is a male. With everyone having different targets this means that this is only the first part of the trial with direct confrontation between each of the surviving candidates likely the second stage. Worried that his mom and Quinn might be part of this, Zane contacts his mother to tell her he is alive and to check if they are fine. His mother is relieved but then threatens that if he doesn't come home she will be forced to act.

When Ariane doesn't fully commit to Justine she becomes aware that Justine intends to force her to come with her. Ariane and Zane manage to escape Justine and her agents in order to discover the real truth about the trials and to stop for once and all, Dr.Jacob and Dr. Laughlin. What they will uncover is far worse than they could have imagined, convincing Ariane that she must take down Jacobs and Laughlin.

Discussion

The Trials does a great job of wrapping up the Project Paper Dolls series with a believable, satisfying conclusion. Kade maintains suspense through the early part of the story by not revealing the true nature of the trials. Ariane expects that she will have to physically fight the other alien/hybrids however, this is not the case.Instead she learns of a more sinister reality when Zane's mother goes public with the truth about GTX and its role in human experimentation on children. Kade chose a more realistic storyline to conclude her series, adding an air of believability to the ending.

The major revelation near the end of the novel by Laughlin is shocking. Laughlin reveals the exact procedure that created Ariane -  a fertilized human egg and the alien genetic material. The revelation reveals the connection between Rachel and Ariane as well as what really happened to Ariane's biological mother. These revelations only serve to reinforce Ariane's belief that Laughlin and Ford must be stopped. However, this sets up a conflict between Ford and Ariane. Ford wants to kill Laughlin, something Zane tries to talk Ariane out of participating in. Zane knows that Ariane has fought constantly against using her abilities to harm others. When she stopped Joseph Zadowski's heart she performed CPR on him to save him. But he also recognizes that Ariane wants to listen to Ford. "If she did, it would destroy her. I understood the urge to kill Jacobs, more so now than ever. But the kind of person Ariane was, it would break something in her. She was a defender of the weak, the innocent...Murdering someone in cold blood, even a person she hated, would end her. She woudn't be able to live without punishing herself. Ariane, the girl I loved, would disappear beneath waves of misery and self-loathing." Ariane tries to negotiate with Ford for the lives of Zane, Rachel and Emerson St. John. However Zane tells her if she participates in Jacobs and Laughlin's deaths she will never be free of them and she will become what they have always believed she is - a weapon. In the end, Ariane's decision is taken away from her by Ford's actions. It's a tidy finish that sees the true villains get their just desserts, while Ariane and Zane eventually are able to restart their lives.

One of the main themes of this novel is Ariane's struggle to be accepted by humans as a person rather than as a lab specimen or a product, in this case, a weapon to be sold. Ariane must deal with how everyone views her as somehow less than human despite the fact that she has abilities that humans do not. Zane's mother, Mara Bradshaw and Ariane's schoolmate, Rachel Jacobs consider Ariane and the other alien/human hybrids to not be "real" people. This is also Dr. Jacob's opinion too, as he refers to Ariane by her serial number, 107 which is the shortened form of GTX-F-107, effectively dehumanizing her. He doesn't view her as a person who has feelings but more as a robot. This is demonstrated by his having Rachel spend time with Ariane in an attempt to "humanize" her so that she will be more appealing to the government agency seeking his technology. In fact, the alien/hybrids are portrayed as more ethical and empathetic than many of the humans who are seen as grasping for power and money.

Ariane is a strong, ethical character in The Trials, determined to end the research of Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Laughlin even if it means her death while at the same time saving Carter and Ford. Even when she is finally taken away by Justine, Ariane manages to negotiate a deal that works in her favour. Ford redeems herself in this novel, sacrificing her life to make sure that Laughlin's research will never more forward, while Zane too is willing to sacrifice his life to help Ariane - he takes a dangerous experimental virus so as to be able to enter the trials and convince Ariane to take Justine's offer.

Project Paper Dolls is a really good series that will appeal to those who like sci fi and adventure. While The Trials was a good finish to this series, the best book was the middle novel, The Hunt.


Book Details:

The Trials by Stacey Kade
New York: Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group     2015
328 pp.

The Rules by Stacey Kade

Cover of the novel I read.

Sixteen year old Ariane Tucker knows The Rules.
1. Never trust anyone.
2. Remember they are always searching.
3. Don't get involved.
4. Keep your head down.
5. Don't fall in love.
Ariane has followed these rules faithfully for ten years. Until she meets Zane Bradshaw.

Ariane is the creation of GenTex Labs (GTX), home to Project Paper Doll. She is an alien/human hybrid, created from a human mother using DNA taken from the Rozwell aliens. Ariane lived in an observation room for the first six years of her life at GTX until a bomb exploded and she was helped to escape by her "father", Mark Tucker, a security guard at the Labs. Instead of fleeing, the two of them live in Wingate, right under the shadow of GTX Labs which is located only ten miles away. Their strategy has been for Ariane to blend in and take the name of Mark's fully human daughter, Ariane, who died after a serious illness. Ariane enrolls in school and now attends high school where she is a junior.

Ariane has followed The Rules faithfully for ten years. But when her best and only friend, Jenna is bullied by Rachel Jacobs, Ariane knows she cannot stand by and watch her humiliation. Ariane confronts Rachel, thereby earning her wrath and placing her squarely in Rachel's sights for revenge. That revenge involves using tall, handsome Zane Bradshaw, whom, it turns out, Rachel has definitely underestimated.

Zane has his own issues to deal with, specifically his father, Jay Bradshaw, who is Wingate's police chief. Zane has grown up in the shadow of his older brother, Quinn, an all star athlete. Nothing Zane does is comparable to Quinn's accomplishments in his father's eyes and he must cope with his father's bullying. Zane's mother left his dad over a year ago, no longer being able to cope with the abusive home life. Zane's life at school isn't much better, where he is part of Rachel Jacob's bullying posse. When Rachel devises a plan that involves using Zane to exact revenge on the quiet, unassuming Ariane Tucker, Zane knows he has to accept her request. Zane does so in the hopes of giving Rachel a taste of her own medicine. But getting Ariane to agree, at first is difficult. When a second, even worse bullying of Jenna occurs, Ariane decides to agree to Zane's request, despite her fear that by breaking one of her adoptive father's cardinal rules, GTX will discover her whereabouts.

Zane has already noticed some things about Ariane that he considers strange. She always does her math in ink and she always gets two or three wrong on tests. Never more nor less. He also notices that there is always a bandage on the back of her neck and that she wears contacts to cover up the real cover of her eyes. For Zane, getting Ariane involved  not only means getting back at Rachel, but also solving the mystery of Ariane.

Of course what Zane doesn't know is that Ariane has more abilities than he is aware of. Ariane can hear people's thoughts and sense their emotions and she has telekinesis - the ability to manipulate objects. Before she was freed from GTX, Ariane was being trained to kill, something she refused to co-operate with, resulting in emotional trauma and the paralyzing of her abilities.

The two of them decide they will pretend to date and instead of Zane dumping Ariane as Rachel planned they will reveal that they are friends thus thwarting her revenge on Ariane. However, things get complicated with both Zane and Ariane developing a genuine love for one another. As the conflict between Jenna, Rachel and Ariane spirals out of control, it becomes increasingly evident that GTX also might be hot on Ariane's trail. When Ariane's father warns her to drop Zane Bradshaw, telling her that she will place him in the crosshairs of GTX, Ariane does what she things is best. But is she too late to save herself and Zane?

Discussion

The Rules is an enjoyable young adult novel that employs a common teen trope of a couple pretending to date for revenge but actually falling for one another.  The storyline combines the concepts of Mean Girls with an "alien" Carrie. Thrown in with this mix is a blossoming romance between the two main characters.

Told in the alternating narratives of Ariane and Zane we learn through flashbacks the past of both characters; Zane's abusive home life and Ariane's lonely terror as an experimental child-subject in the lab at GTX. Both therefore, keenly feel the injustice of Rachel's bullying of Jenna and try to protect her. Both are desperately seeking love and affirmation.

Both Zane and Ariane suffer from a deep loneliness that comes from being misunderstood and not accepted for who they are. Zane is struggling to create his own identity separate from that of his older brother Quinn. Zane wants to be different from both his brother and his father, whom he sees as manipulative people. He's just biding his time until graduation in two years.

Meanwhile, Ariane's struggle is reminiscent of that of the human-Vulcan character,  Mr. Spock from Star Trek. Ariane struggles between her logical alien nature and her emotional human one. "I gritted my teeth. This was the balancing act I struggled with daily, sometimes hourly. I felt like I was nothing but a bunch of extremes all bound up together. The logical voice in my head pointing out facts and likely scenarios, and the roar of emotions, the rush of want and need, that would drown everything out if I let it."

"But it was important for me to remember that in this particular situation, as with most, giving in to my human side would be dangerous. Satisfying maybe, but dangerous. I wanted, raged, and needed, just like everybody else. But my analytical nonhuman side knew that giving in was risking...."

Zane and Ariane's blossoming romance is delightful, as they discover the unexpected in each other. Zane is impressed by Ariane's courage and self control, while Ariane is touched by Zane's tenderness and concern for her well-being.

Readers might pick up on some of the twists in the novel, but generally they will be a surprise, while the climax will likely be somewhat predictable. Nevertheless, this doesn't make The Rules any less of an enjoyable read. 

While author Stacey Kade was happy with the novel's cover, the model seems too old for the sixteen-year-old character. 

Book Details:
The Rules by Stacey Kade
New York: Hyperion      2013
410 pp.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running, not staying, but facing.
Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity.
And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield.

The story opens with Cassiopeia Marie Sullivan's first person narration which describes the waves of the alien invasion and then her hiding in the wilderness. She is one of the last survivors of the human race. It began with the appearance of a huge green ship in orbit around the Earth. For ten days nothing happened while people speculated, fretted, and wondered why the aliens did not make contact. The attack came in waves. 

The first wave was a electromagnetic pulse that knocked out everything - cell phones, electricity, car and airplane engines. Nothing worked. Cars stalled on the roads, planes plummeted to earth. Half a million people died. The second wave was the creation of an earthquake that caused a massive tsunami. Forty percent of the earth's population lives within sixty miles of a coastline. Three billion people perished. The third wave was an Ebola-like outbreak, spread by Earth's three hundred billion birds. The fourth wave was the "Silencers" or those who are aliens inhabiting human bodies whose job it is to kill the remaining humans.

Cassie's father, mother and younger brother Sammy had stayed through the first three waves, barricaded in their home. However, when her mother died from the Red Tsunami, Cassie's father decided to leave and head for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, over one hundred miles away. When they arrives at a refugee camp twenty miles from their home, Cassie, Sammy and their father waited to see what would happen. Then one day a grey drone appeared, followed later by troops who separated the children from older teens and adults. This resulted in Cassie becoming separated from Sammy. She then witnessed the mass murder of all the adults but manages to escape.

The novel picks up the story with Cassie's current situation, hidden in the forest. Cassie realizes that she cannot stay hidden forever, that she will eventually be hunted down and that she wants to keep her promise to Sammy to come get him. She decides to make her way back to the Wright-Patterson Base where she believes Sammy has been taken. However, despite her care in traveling, she is shot and wounded by what she suspects is a "Silencer" - an alien who looks like a human who kills those who remain. Seriously wounded, Cassie is surprised when he lets her go. However, further into her journey, she becomes stranded during a snowstorm and is rescued by a stranger.

Meanwhile, although Cassie assumes seventeen-year old Ben Parish is dead, he is in fact barely alive, suffering from the Red Plague. Ben is a boy that Cassie liked prior to the alien invasion. He narrates his story beginning with his arrival at Wright-Patterson Airbase after the soldiers clean out the tent city next to the base where he has been staying. They save his life and he is encouraged to find the will to fight against the aliens. He learns from the doctor there that the aliens have infected certain people and that these people are now activated into hunters to kill the remaining humans - the fifth wave of the invasion. The preceding four waves were merely to whittle Earth's 4 billion population down to a manageable size for annihilation.

Parish, along with many other children, are trained to be soldiers and are told that they can help fight back against the invaders. They are tagged with a small capsule that allows them to be tracked and are told that the aliens are inside some humans and that with the use of a special headset they can be detected and will glow green. Those who are not infested will be red. From the very beginning all of their training reinforces this understanding, giving them no reason to question otherwise. Parish, who used to be a high school jock and who is deeply depressed over the loss of his sister and his family, is gradually trained into a proficient soldier. His unit includes a young woman named Ringer who is a crack shot, several young boys named Dumbo and Flinstone, a young girl named Teacup and a little boy named Nugget who is in fact, Cassie's brother, Sammy.

When their training is complete, Parish, who now goes by the name, Zombie, along with his unit (excepting Sammy) are sent on a mission into a city. They are given special headsets that glow green indicating a person is infested with an alien and are told to take out anyone who registers as "infested". However, Ringer begins to realize that the situation doesn't make sense and soon figures out that they are being used by the aliens as the 5th Wave - humans who are trained and duped to kill those humans who have survived the previous four waves of attack. Ben and Ringer must decide what to do as Ben knows he needs to return for Nugget whom he promised he would not leave behind.

During the time that Ben and Sammy are at Wright-Patterson Airbase, Cassie awakens to finds herself being cared for at an isolated farmhouse in Ohio. Her caretaker is a handsome young man, Evan Walker, who claims to be the sole survivor of his family. The house is Evan's family's farmhouse, but soon many things about Evan just don't add up. Cassie soon begins to realize the truth of what he is too. This is complicated by the fact that Cassie begins to fall for Evan, all the while struggling between attempting to trust him and wanting to kill him for who he is and what she's sure he's done.

Cassie tells him she must go back to get her brother, even if it means her dying in the process. Evan who is in love with her, decides to debrief her on the base so that she will have a reasonable chance of succeeding. How will Cassie sneak into a death camp for humans, that is surrounded by drones and soldiers controlled by advanced alien technology?

Discussion

Rick Yancey is an adult writer whose previous works have been immensely popular. The 5th Wave which is the first in his new YA series, feels like a mix of original Star Trek (Return to Tomorrow) and the television series V which ran in the 1980's and deals with humans battling malevolent aliens intent on taking over Earth. Of course these storylines - the aliens so advanced they have no physical body and are only a consciousness, and the alien invasion that sees a few good aliens side with their human prey, are a common trope in science fiction literature and movies.

The novel is narrated in several voices; 16 year old Cassie, Sammy, 17 year old Benjamin Parish who is a boy Cassie had a crush on before "The Arrival", and Evan Walker, a mysterious stranger who helps Cassie. The first part of the novel, narrated by Cassie is excellent, capturing the reader's interest with the fascinating backstory of the appearance of the aliens and their gradual assault on Earth. However, the novel slows considerably when Yancey goes into great detail regarding Ben Parish's training at Wright-Patterson. Readers will find this part of the novel slow going, but the detail here is important, because the author is setting up the events that lead to the climax of the novel.

All of this is used to create a twist in the plot which leads to a heart-pounding climax and sets the stage for the next novel. It's like a game of chess now; with the aliens in check and the humans awaiting their next move. And the odds are stacked against the humans.

Cassie is the strong-willed, courageous heroine in this novel. Her relationship with Evan is the dominant one is this first novel. It creates a great deal of suspense because the reader knows who Evan is but doesn't yet know his motive for helping Cassie and because Cassie isn't completely certain who he is. The end of the novel sees Cassie meet up with her crush, Ben Parish, who has changed considerably since their high school days, only months ago. He is now a hardened soldier bent on revenge. Yancey has set up the possibility of a love triangle between Ben, Cassie and Evan in the next installment.

My only complaint about this book was when Yancey first switches his narrator. The novel is broken into different sections separated by black title pages. The second section, titled Wonderland is confusing because the reader assumes they are still reading the narration by Cassie when in fact the story is now being told by Ben's point of view.

Like many recent young adult novels, The 5th Wave is long, a whopping 457 pages. But those pages are filled with a mixture of horror, suspense, romance, grit and action that keeps the reader engaged throughout. The reader wants the humans to win, but the odds against them are so high that this creates the tension necessary for the next book!

Book Details:
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Toronto: G.P. Putnam's Sons   2013
457 pp.