Book Discussion: The Gardener by S. A. Bodeen
From Amazon: Mason has never known his father, but longs to. All he has of him is a DVD of a man whose face is never seen, reading a children’s book. One day, on a whim, he plays the DVD for a group of comatose teens at the nursing home where his mother works. One of them, a beautiful girl, responds. Mason learns she is part of a horrible experiment intended to render teenagers into autotrophs-genetically engineered, self-sustaining life-forms who don’t need food or water to survive. And before he knows it, Mason is on the run with the girl, and wanted, dead or alive, by the mysterious mastermind of this gruesome plan, who is simply called the Gardener.
Will Mason be forced to destroy the thing he’s longed for most?
Let me start by saying that normally, sci-fi isn’t my thing. That said, the premise of this book was enough to intrigue me. Plus, I’d read latteya’s first book, The Compound, and really liked it, that and she’s pretty cool herself. Turns out that not only is the sci-fi element light enough for me, but the story is fascinatingly creepy and I really, really liked Mason.
I liked Mason’s attitude about his scars and how his experiences shaped the way he responded to Laila. I liked the way his need to be a hero was shown as both a strength and something that could cause him a lot of problems, and yet, he wasn’t willing to let those problems stop him. He’s someone who doesn’t let what life throws at him stop him from what he wants/needs to do. Interesting side note... his best friend is Jack Meacham and when I was in grade school, I knew a kid named Jackson Meacham. We were constantly in competition with each other to be the smartest kid in our class.
The whole idea of genetically modifying people to get their nourishment from the sun rather than food or water is kind of cool-in a very creepy, disturbing way. My skin kept crawling the whole time I read the book. While I figured Mason’s connection to the experiment had to be more than just helping Laila to escape-and I did have several theories-I was still surprised by what it turned out to be. And I have to give kudos to his mom for her dedication to her child. I was already happy to see that while she did have her weaknesses and problems-because what person doesn’t-she still tried to be a good mom. Although I couldn’t really decide if she was supportive of the experiment as long as her son wasn’t part of it and that’s why she kept working on it in the capacity that she did, or if she felt the same way that Dr. Emerson did but didn’t feel like she had the freedom to fully escape from it. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I was very happy to read the epilogue. Without it, I would not have been a happy camper when I got to the end. But the epilogue helped satisfy me-though in all honesty, I would have more than willingly continued on with Mason and Laila for several more pages. I wasn’t ready to leave them just yet.
I don’t know about the rest of you who read the book, but I really wish we had a Powells here. I’d heard of that bookstore before but had no idea how huge it was until I read the scenes that took place there. I was practically drooling over the idea of spending a day in a bookstore like that.
All right, so those of you who read The Gardener, what did you think?