Altered by Jennifer Rush

When you can't trust yourself, who can you believe?

Everything about Anna’s life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who’s stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them. 

Anna is torn between following Sam or staying behind in the safety of her everyday life. But her father pushes her to flee, making Sam promise to keep her away from the Branch, at all costs. There’s just one problem. Sam and the boys don’t remember anything before living in the lab—not even their true identities.

Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away.

This is the best debut novel I've read this year so far! It was so much better than I was expecting it to be! I honestly didn't expect to be pulled into this book from the very first page. There was just something about it that I loved and I couldn't put it down. 


So this book revolves around our main character Anna who has four boys living in her basement. These boys have undergone treatment that has caused them to be altered. 

I loved Anna's character right from the start. She was so smart and caring. She was always looking out for the boys and I really liked that about her. I also thought she was kind of naive to start with, but throughout the story as things started to be uncovered, her character developed. She became a powerful character and I just loved her.

So there were 4 guys in this book! Yes, 4 very hot guys. We have Sam, Cas, Nick & Trev.

Sam was a very practical character. He knew what he had to do and would go to any lengths to do what he had to do. I liked him, then I hated him for a very short period and then I loved him! I loved seeing his journey and seeing him discover who he really is and what happened to him. I felt so bad for Sam because of everything that had happened to him, it was awful. 

Cas was probably my favourite out of all the guys. he was so sweet and funny! He had me howling most of the time whenever he said something. I always looked forward to hearing what he was going to say next. He always tried to lighten the mood and I loved him for that.

I actually started out hating Nick. He was such an arrogant character. He was always being horrible to Anna and causing problems. But as the book went on, and I got to see more of Nick and learn more about him, my opinion of him changed. It was mostly towards the end of the book that I started to like him. 

I really liked Trev at the start of the book. He seemed to be the most down to earth and normal one out of all the boys. He loved reading and he was super smart! And then something happened that involved Trev and I was just so shocked! My opinion of him slightly changed. I couldn't hate him. He was Trev! I still really like him and I'm hoping I'll get to see more of him in the next book.

This story was just action packed. There wasn't one dull moment in this book and I loved it! I loved being drawn completely into the story and not wanting to put it down for anything. I think I finished it in about 4 hours! I loved it too much to stop reading. 
There was a lot going on in the story with the 4 altered boys, trying to discover what happened to them and who they were before. There were a couple of other things going on as well that I don't want to mention because it'll spoil the book and I don't want to do that because I was just so shocked!

I'm trying not to go on and on about this book because I know I could, but my review would definitely include spoilers if I did. So I won't. This was definitely the best debut novel I've read this year so far so it definitely deserves:

If you haven't read this yet, go and read it now! Trust me, you won't regret it! You'll be kicking yourself for not reading it sooner.