This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada

January 14, 2019 Kirsty Hanson

This Mortal Coil was another library find for me! I hadn’t been to the library in so long, and I ended up coming out with about ten books (it’s a good job that I took quite a few tote bags with me!)

When a lone soldier, Cole, arrives with news of Lachlan Agatta’s death, all hope seems lost for Catarina. Her father was the world’s leading geneticist, and humanity’s best hope of beating a devastating virus. Then, hidden beneath Cole’s genehacked enhancements she finds a message of hope: Lachlan created a vaccine.

Only she can find and decrypt it, if she can unravel the clues he left for her. The closer she gets, the more she finds herself at risk from Cartaxus, a shadowy organization with a stranglehold on the world’s genetic tech. But it’s too late to turn back.

There are three billion lives at stake, two people who can save them, and one final secret that Cat must unlock. A secret that will change everything.

I’m an absolute sucker for a good dystopian. I know that many people think that they’re a trend that has completely died out and that they can get a bit repetitive, but I disagree! Aren’t we practically living a dystopian world right now? It’s also interesting to see what the authors are going to come up with for a dystopian world.

“It’s funny, that saying—I’d rather die. It’s funny because nobody means it. The truth is that when you’re facing death, there’s no telling what you’ll do.”

― Emily Suvada, This Mortal Coil

The story opens up with Cat hacking into a piece of equipment, and straight away, I loved her. I love hackers. I love the concept of hacking… I just think that it’s badass, especially when it’s a hacker going into government files.

The plot itself is similar to things that we’ve seen before: a soldier who is working for the opposition to Cat comes onto the scene and Cat realises that everything that she has been told isn’t necessarily true and blah blah blah. It’s predictable. There were times where the plot twisted and turned, and I did get a surprise a few times, but other than that, I pretty much had an idea of what was going to happen.

“I meant what I said, just so you know. I’ll break your fingers if you touch me.”

― Emily Suvada, This Mortal Coil

The dystopian element of the novel is that there is a disease that causes people to explode? I guess? And then the people in the area try and eat them… So, it’s zombiesque as well. One of my favourite scenes in the whole novel, is when Suvada is describing someone getting their ear bitten off. The whole scene is so graphic, and I was glad that Suvada didn’t shy away from the gore of the disease. It may be a YA novel, but there is definitely some gore in there.

The ending left things on a nice little cliffhanger, and even though I gave this book 3.5 stars, I am looking forward to reading the second book, just to see where Suvada takes the plot.