This dystopian survival story wraps up too neatly in the final pages, with new characters introduced and hidden motivations suddenly revealed for a tidy conclusion. Primary characters have depth and complexity, while secondary ones serve mostly to forward the plot. He also has a troubled but intense relationship with Alden, a local drug dealer, who is the only one who can provide Nate with the Remedy he needs to stay alive. A Tinker who repairs broken tech, Nate is in love with Reed, the leader of a small gang whose members live by scavenging whatever they can find in bins and trashed buildings. The poor and powerless live in the quarantined and lawless Withers, outside the walled metropolis of Gathos City.

Genetically Engineered Medi-tissue, or GEM, he hides his secret because his blood is highly addictive for non-genetically engineered human beings. Gr 8 Up-Nate, 16, created for spare parts and highly prized blood that causes euphoria, struggles in a world where so many have succumbed to lung rot. With time running out, Nate is left with only two options: work for a shadowy terrorist organization that has the means to keep him alive, or stay-and die-with the boy he loves. When violence erupts across the Withers, Nate’s illegal supply of medicine is cut off, and a vicious attack on Reed threatens to expose his secret.

When he meets Reed, a kind and fiercely protective boy who makes his heart race, and his misfit gang of scavengers, Nate finds the family he’s always longed for-even if he can’t risk telling them what he is.īut Gathos created a genetic fail-safe in their GEMs-a flaw in their DNA that causes their health to rapidly deteriorate as they age unless they are regularly dosed with medication controlled by Gathos City. He manages to survive by becoming a Tinkerer, fixing broken tech in exchange for food or a safe place to sleep. As a child, Nate was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and taken into the Withers-a quarantined, lawless region. Sixteen-year-old Nate is a GEM-a Genetically Engineered Medical Surrogate-created by Gathos City scientists as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung rot ravaging the population.

Fragile remedy by maria ingrande mora