Control (Control #1) by Lydia Kang

Control by Lydia Kang
My Rating: ★★★

In 2150, Zelia and her sister, Dylia, are used to packing up and moving often. Their father’s work has never allowed their family to set down roots. However, there’s something different about their last move. They’re moving on extremely short notice and their father keeps looking over his shoulder. Zelia and Dylia don’t think much of it until their world turns upside down after they’re in a terrible accident that literally tears their father to pieces. Now orphans, they discover that they never really knew their father, and that there’s a whole secret society that they’re members of. You see, one of them was born with unknown abilities because someone tampered with their DNA. The sisters are torn from each other and enter a nightmare that leaves them questioning everything.

I’ve read two of Lydia Kang’s books and saw that she wrote some YA novels, so I thought, hey. I love Lydia and YA, so I have to check out these books! I love the world that Lydia built. It’s a futuristic dystopia novel involving people with special abilities. However, unlike say X-Men, Heroes, or any other story involving people with special abilities, these abilities are not the result of evolution. Instead, they are the result of science and people tampering with human DNA. At the point that the novel starts, it’s illegal to tamper with DNA, so these people are living in secret rather than being killed. One of the things that I like about the book is that there’s a lot of science involved. Zelia’s father got her into science and she spends a good portion of the book working on matching DNA and finding a way to replicate a particular person’s abilities. It helps build the world that she lives in as well as her as a character.

I also love that there’s a range of useful to useless abilities, and the useless ones aren’t glossed over. Instead, the people with abilities that aren’t exactly useful or aren’t things that some would not want to replicate aren’t shoved in a corner and forgotten. It’s also interesting to see how each ability has drawbacks. We get to know these characters as people rather than their abilities, and there’s quite a bit of character development with everyone Delia comes to see as an extension of her small family.

There’s also a quite a bit of question about what freedom is for these characters. There are two factions for people with abilities: Carus and Aureus. Both live freely in secret, but are they truly free? Carus is safe but sheltered. Each person living in Carus feels trapped in a prison of safety. The people of Aureus come and go as they like, but they have to follow strict orders and they can and will be submitted to some form of torture if they don’t fall in line. Is anyone truly free? Personally, I’d stick with Carus because at least you’re free to do your own thing as long as you stay inside so the outside world doesn’t get you.

I didn’t care for the romance between Zelia and Cy. I knew that he was going to be her love interest when we first met him. He’s quiet, broody, and bad tempered. Once the romance is full steam ahead, Cy becomes much softer. I wish that there was some discussion as to how and why he’s changing as he becomes happier compared to being full of self-loathing and regret. I understand why he started out one way and ends much softer than before, but there’s little to no discussion about these changes between the characters.

I also didn’t like that Zelia becomes very unlike herself toward the end of the novel. I actually sat back and thought about how it seemed like someone swapped bodies with her. I appreciate how much she was willing to sacrifice to save her sister, but it seemed like that was the only part of her that stayed the same. I also don’t understand why she has so much faith in Micah aka Kw when he more than proved that he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s obviously not going to keep his end of the bargain, so why not put more faith into your new family in Carus? I questioned her faith in him the second he was a bodiless voice in the static offering her so-called help. It just seemed ridiculous that she didn’t sit down and come up with a legitimate plan with her newfound friends and family instead of destroying their trust in her to do her own thing.

All in all, I did enjoy the book, and I hope to see Zelia return to herself again in the second and final book in the series.