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Origin Paperback – September 17, 2013
For as long as she can remember, Pia’s greatest desire has been to fulfill their expectations. But then one night she finds a hole in the impenetrable fence that surrounds her sterile home. Free in the jungle for the first time in her life, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Unable to resist, she continues sneaking out to see him. As they fall in love, they begin to piece together the truth about Pia’s origin—a truth with nothing less than deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.
Origin is a beautifully told, electric new way to look at an age-old desire: to live forever. But is eternal life worth living if you can’t spend it with the one you love?
- Print length432 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level7 - 9
- Dimensions5.5 x 1.08 x 8.25 inches
- PublisherRazorbill
- Publication dateSeptember 17, 2013
- ISBN-109781595145963
- ISBN-13978-1595145963
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"This well-written first novel concerns 17-year-old Pia, who, as the result of advanced genetic engineering, is invulnerable and immortal. . . . [Khoury’s] descriptions of the rainforest and the native people contrast beautifully with the laboratory setting . . . and Pia is a fascinating protagonist." —Publishers Weekly
"This first novel is a gripping read . . . with a clever blend of elements. It is an adventure story with romantic overtones, has a lush exotic setting framed by science, turns the eternal-love concept on its head, and rotates around a compelling moral quandary." —Booklist
"Readers will be thrilled with the page-turning adventure/survival scenes in a descriptive and imaginative setting, and will root for Pia and Eio to the end." —SLJ
"Origin is a startling mystery played out in the vivid and lush Amazon jungle. In this deadly clash of science and nature, a heroine emerges. Pia clawed her way through the pages and left her mark on the landscape of my imagination as the almost tangible danger left me breathless." —Colleen Houck, New York Times bestselling author of Tiger's Curse
"I loved Origin's action, romance, and mystery and I couldn't stop thinking about the questions it raised." —Beth Revis, New York Times bestselling author of Across the Universe
"Is this science fiction? It feels too scarily real. This spellbinding tale of the horrors of genetic engineering gone mad is both thriller and love story, breathlessly paced and beautifully told." —Judy Blundell, National Book Award winning author of What I Saw and How I Lied
"A lush, dreamy page-turner that will live forever in the hearts of its readers. Pia may be the perfect antidote for those suffering from Katniss withdrawal." —Josh Sundquist, author of the national bestseller Just Don't Tell
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I take a step back as he reaches his full height, my flashlight still aimed at his face. “What do you want with me? Where—where are you from?”
“You’re the one who crashed into me.” He is taller than me, and though he is thin, he is very muscular. I can tell because he’s half-naked. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a cord around his neck from which hangs a tiny jaguar carved into jade, but nothing else, not even shoes. His skin is the color of a shelled Brazil nut, light, warm brown, the brown of days spent in the dappled sun of the rainforest. His hair is as black as the night around us and thick with tangles. There is something vaguely familiar about his face, but I can’t think of what it is. That’s very disconcerting for me, since I forget nothing. If I had seen this boy before, I would remember it. And not just because my memory is perfect. I’d remember those eyes . . . that sculpted chest . . . the definition of his abdomen. . . .
I snap my eyes up to his face, whipping my thoughts back into line. My initial fear gives way to anger. “What are you doing out here, anyway? It’s the middle of the night. Where are your clothes?”
He replies, remarkably calmly, “You’ve wandered far from your cage, Pia bird.”
“What?” I ask blankly.
“The dress,” he says, nodding at it. “It makes you look like a bird. The kind we Ai’oa like to keep on our shoulders. But that’s not a good thing to be running around the jungle in.”
I look down at my torn dress. “It’s my birthday.” Furious, I glare at him, refusing to let him distract me. Again. “Ai’oa? What is that?”
He presses a hand to his bare chest. “We are a who, not a what.”
“Are you a native?” “I’m Ai’oan. Only the scientists call us natives.” He cocks his head curiously. “Are you a scientist? I think you must be, because you are of the Little Cam village.”
“No. Yes. I mean, I will be soon. How did you know where I’m from? Have you been to Little Cam?” Fear had turned to anger, but my anger now transforms into fascination. I’ve never spoken with anyone from outside Little Cam. Harriet Fields doesn’t count because now she’s from Little Cam too.
“I’ve seen it,” he says, “but only from the trees. It is no place for the Ai’oa. Kapukiri says there is evil in the village of the scientists.”
“Little Cam isn’t evil,” I reply, bristling. “What do you know about it?”
“Only what Kapukiri says.” He kneels and stares curiously at Alai. “He obeys your command and follows where you go. Incredible. Truly, you are blessed to have such a companion.”
His words soften me, and I warm a little. “Is your village close?” Eio’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “Why? What do you want with Ai’oa?”
“I want to see it,” I say on a whim. “Show it to me.” “I don’t know. . . .” He frowns. “That smoke I smell, is it from Ai’oa?” I close my eyes and breathe deeply. “It’s coming from . . . that direction.” I open my eyes and start to follow the scent. When I look back, Eio is staring at me with wide eyes.
“You . . .” He runs to catch up with me. “You can smell it from here?”
“Ah . . .” I swallow and backpedal a bit. “Well, can’t you?”
Uncertainty plays openly across his face. “I guess . . . if you promise not to wake everyone . . .”
“I swear.”
“Well . . . okay.” He still seems uneasy. I take it that visitors aren’t often invited to Ai’oa.
I follow him over fallen logs made soft with mosses and under low-hanging vines and limbs. I wonder how he’ll see where he’s going, but he seems to feel his way rather than see it. I thought I moved silently through the jungle, but Eio seems to float over the ground rather than walk on it. He moves as sinuously as a snake and as lightly as a butterfly. Alai stays between us at all times, showing his mistrust in his hackles and rigid tail.
Before long I smell smoke, then I see the fires from which it comes. They burn low, more embers than flames, several dozen of them. Around the fires are huts made of four poles and thatched with palm leaves. They have no walls. When we reach the edge of the village, Eio stops me. “They are sleeping. It is never good to wake what is sleeping. Stay here and look, but don’t wake them.”
“You’re awake,” I point out.
“I couldn’t sleep. I heard a jaguar and went looking for it.” He looks down at Alai. I remember Alai’s roars as we escaped through the fence. “Is it a good idea to hunt jaguars? Seems to me they’d end up hunting you.”
Eio sits on a mossy rock, arms crossed over his bare chest. “Not to catch one! To see it. It is a powerful sign, the glimpse of the jaguar.”
“I see a jaguar every day,” I say, reaching down to rub Alai’s ears.
“It is a thing unheard of.” He shakes his head. “In the jungle, the jaguar is king. He follows no one but himself, and we Ai’oa fear and respect him and call him guardian.”
“Alai’s just a big baby, really.”
Eio gives a short laugh. “Of course. That’s why he tried to bite the nose off my face!”
“How do you know English? Uncle Paolo told me you natives were ignorant about everything outside your own villages.”
“I’m not ignorant,” Eio objects. “It is you who are ignorant, Pia bird. My father taught me English.”
“Your father?”
“He is a scientist like you, in Little Cam.”
“Really!” I blink and stare at him with astonishment. Well, well, someone’s been hiding a really big secret. . . . “Who is it? What’s his name?” I think of all the scientists, wondering who it could be.
“I don’t know his name. To me, he is only Papi. He comes and teaches me English and math and writing.”
“What does he look like?”
Eio shrugs. “Ugly, like all scientists.”
I frown. “You think I’m ugly?” “Of course,” he says, staring toward his village.
I feel my face flush with anger. “That’s the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me! I’m not ugly! I’m . . .” I look down at my muddy, bedraggled dress, and my voice falls to an embarrassed whisper. “I’m perfect.”
“Perfect? Is that why you’re running around in the jungle, making noise like a tapir running from the spear, in a dress?”
“I—it’s my birthday. . . . I wanted to see the jungle. I’ve never been outside Little Cam before. I wanted to feel what it was like to be outside, in the wild.” “Are you a prisoner, Pia bird?”
“No,” I say, startled.
“Why have you never left, then?”
“I—they say it’s dangerous. Anacondas.”
“Anacondas! I have killed an anaconda.”
“You have?”
“Yes. It was as long as I am tall, and I am the tallest Ai’oan in the village. I made its skin into a belt for Papi.”
“I’ve only seen an anaconda once. It was dead too. Uncle Timothy shot it.”
“With a gun?”
“Of course with a gun!”
“I don’t like guns. I hunt with dart and spear and arrow. These are silent and will not scare away your prey like a stupid gun.”
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the night is growing even darker. “I should go back now.” It’s been much, much longer than an hour. My delirious rush of adrenaline leaves me weary and nervous. I want to get back, to change and shower before my absence is noticed. If it hasn’t been noticed already.
Product details
- ASIN : 1595145966
- Publisher : Razorbill; Reprint edition (September 17, 2013)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781595145963
- ISBN-13 : 978-1595145963
- Reading age : 13+ years, from customers
- Grade level : 7 - 9
- Item Weight : 14.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.08 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Pia has always lived in Little Cam, a highly secret scientific community hidden deep in the Amazon Rain Forest. She was created there. Pia is the result of a discovery of a deadly but uniquely manipulated flower and a century's worth of experimentation. Scientists were able to incorporate the flower's nectar into a serum that over generations made the test subjects more and more "perfect" and eventually resulted in the perfect human being- the immortal Pia. Even her skin is impenetrable. But Pia still faces dangers. In the rain forest she could be swallowed by an anaconda and spend her immortality inside its belly, but on a larger scale, her very existence is dangerous. People would kill to get their hands on Pia and study her.
The scientists aren't allowed to let Pia know anything about the outside world, but a girl trapped in a compound is bound to overhear information. Intensely curious about the outside world, Pia jumps on a chance to escape when a tree uproots and creates an opening in the otherwise electrified and fatal fence. Dashing through the jungle, she encounters a young native boy names Eio. Eio is everything she never knew she wanted. He is strong willed and strong in body. He is intrigued by Pia, and despite her brief visit, they can't stop thinking about one another. She knows she will be in trouble if the scientists know she found a way out, but she must see more of Eio. In her frequent visits, Pia begins to learn the scientists hid more from her than just knowledge of the outside world. When she finally learns the secret of how she was created, Pia isn't sure she can become one of them, even if her immortal life will be without a perfect, immortal mate. Because, after all, not all wonderful things are immortal... like Eio, for instance!
This was such an interesting and intriguing novel. It had all the elements you would imagine in a "created" human (think Frankenstein), but it also had so much more, like love and teenage affections. I loved how Pia was sheltered, but certainly not naive. She struggled with acceptance that the people she referred to as Uncle and Aunt were in fact cold, heartless, ruthless people, but she wasn't naive. It was a truly remarkable transformation to see her from the first time she escaped to her final experiences with scientists. This is a story that raises so many emotional and ethical questions that you could spend weeks discussing it with your students.
The writing is very clean and appropriate for a wide range of ages. I think a younger student would miss some of the more subtle or more mature concepts, such as science vs. morality and the ethics of the means justifying the end, but they will still enjoy the story. There is enough in here for a large variety of people. I am interested to see what Khoury does next, because this stand-alone novel was pretty powerful! And you will have to ask yourself, what would you sacrifice to stop your family from aging?
What adjective could I use to review it, and still do the book justice? There isn't just one.
Beautiful. Allegorical. Straight forward. Multi-layered. Dystopian. Relevant. Poetic at times. Harsh at other times. Descriptive. Story driven. Philosophical. Down to earth. Faithful to the best, and worst, of our human nature. Thoroughly and utterly satisfying.
All at the same time.
The main protagonist might be teenaged in years, but the story as an allegory is universal for all ages.
Pia, genetically engineered to be perfectly immortal, has lived her seventeen years in a small scientific compound hidden in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Surrounded by the team of scientists who created her, she's been conditioned to devalue all emotional thought, and rely on pure scientific reason.
She knows virtually nothing of the outside world--its philosophies, literature, religions, music-- and has been exclusively trained in the sciences. Having been told her whole life that she is the "perfect one", which in itself sets her apart, she lives alone in her uniqueness. She's never known the company of other people her own age, and carries the weight of being the only one in her world who'll live forever.
Her goal: Pass the tests so she can learn the secrets behind her creation, and become a part of the scientific team that will create other immortals like her.
All is going according to plan until, one day, an impulse to discover the jungle outside her perimeter drives her to sneak out. It only takes a few steps into the unknown for an outside influence to enter her world: A boy her own age, who comes from the jungle.
Her seemingly perfect world begins to unravel as polar opposites clash. Her social conditioning of intellectual reason versus biological attraction. The safe sterility of her compound versus the wild call of the jungle. Her seemingly straightforward goal soon takes a sinister turn as secrets are revealed. How was Pia really created? Is she a real person? Or a numbered specimen? Where does the greater good lie? And at what cost?
Ms Khoury is adept at interweaving those opposites in a way that kept me reading, page after page, and never once dropping out of the story due to bad sentence structure, untrue dialogue, or overly wrought description.
I could nit pick, and say the love story between Pia and the Native boy, Eio, escalates too quickly.
Yet, when the story was all said and done, my first thought was, "Wow, that was a good read."
WARNING: If the idea of a genetically engineered immortal attracts you as a story's protagonist, but you're looking for a Marvel Comics approach to story telling with short sentences and lots of bang-bang-'em-up scenes where other equally enhanced people fight it out right from the beginning, then this might not be the book you're looking for. Wait until you're ready to read a story that sets the stage, and then unfolds with well turned sentences that will delight a reader of literary fiction.
Top reviews from other countries
Tief im Regenwald verborgen liegt die Forschungsstation auf der sie geboren und großgeworden ist, sie hat nie einen Teil der Welt, außerhalb von Little Cam (der Forschungsstation) gesehen.
Wie genau Pia erschaffen wurde, das weiß sie nicht- noch nicht. Pia ist erst 16 und wenn sie ihre Ausbildung abgeschlossen hat wird sie ebenfalls eine Wissenschaftlerin. Ihre Aufgabe wird es sein, noch mehr Unsterbliche zu erschaffen, denn noch ist sie die einzige.
Pia ist zufrieden mit ihrem Leben, bis sie an ihrem 17. Geburtstag ein Loch in dem Zaun entdeckt, der Little Cam umgibt, kurz entschlossen schlüpft sie hindurch- nur für ein paar Stunden, niemand wird etwas bemerken. Als sie den gutaussehenden Eio vom Stamm der Ai'oans trifft, ist sie fasziniert und schleicht sich von nun an immer wieder in den Dschungel um sich mit ihm zu treffen. Der Stamm der Ai'oans verabscheut die Wissenschaftler, erzählt grauenhafte Geschichten über sie. Aber das kann doch nicht wahr sein, oder ? Pia ist sich da auf einmal nicht mehr so sicher. Wieso machen die Wissenschaftler ein so großes Geheimnis um Pias Erschaffung? Kann es sein, dass für diese Sache Menschen gestorben sind? Und wenn ja, was für eine Rolle spielt Pia in diesem Spiel?
Ich habe die Leseprobe die bei Amazon vorliegt gelesen und musste das Buch unbedingt haben. Und ich muss sagen- es hat sich definitiv gelohnt, das Buch zu kaufen! Pia ist ein toller Charakter und sowohl sie selbst, als auch ihre Entwicklung wird in dem Buch toll beschrieben. Am Anfang ist sie noch ganz die arrogante und korrekte Wissenschaftlerin die sie sein soll, doch unter Eios Einfluss taut sie schnell auf und lernt zu leben und zu lieben. Ihr Schock, als sie den Ursprung ihrer wahren Herkunft herausfindet, finde ich toll und ganz ehrlich- ich war selbst geschockt, das hatte ich nicht erwartet. Die Idee der Autorin ist grandios, und der Leser lacht und weint mit mit Pia mit. Ich hatte manchmal den Eindruck, ich selbst würde im Dschungel stehen und rennen, weinen, lachen oder kämpfen.
Bei vielen Science-Fiction-Büchern ist die Hauptperson oft zu surreal, man kann nicht richtig mitfühlen. Nicht so bei Origin! Dass es Science-Fiction ist, spürt der Leser kaum, es fühlt sich unglaublich real an. Ich hatte das Buch in zwei Tagen verschlungen. Eine kleine Kritik an den Verlag muss ich dennoch anbringen- das Buch ist für 12-jährige nicht wirklich geeignet. Das Ende ist dann doch schon recht erschreckend und am Ende hat das Buch ein bisschen was von einem Thriller. Ich würde das Buch frühestens ab 13 empfehlen, da es sich ziemlich real anfühlt.
Ein auf jeden Fall zu empfehlendes Buch! Ich freue mich auf mehr von dieser tollen Autorin.
I thought it was awesome; dark, funny, forboding. Almost like being in the Dharma initiative from Lost. The romance was done very well too.
The characters were great and the story cracked a long at a terrific pace, no dissapointments, plenty of mystery.
I know Jess wrote this in 30 days which is incredible, but it works! You could really feel that cohesiveness to the story, which was brilliant.
I look forward to reading her next book, Vitro out in Jan!
I was hooked despite some flaws in the story - definitely a page turner.