Review: The Originals - Cat Patrick

I glance at the three baby portraits in thick wooden frames.
I feel a familiar prickling on the back of my neck.
Because I know there's another picture somewhere- and the baby in that photo looks identical to the babies on the wall.
Somewhere, there's a photo of the Original.

Ella, Betsey and I look like sisters: triplets, you might think.

But that's not all.

We are clones in hiding. We split our lives and exist as one person in the outside world. And we've always been happy.

But now I've fallen head-over-heels in love . . . and that changes everything.

Because, to let love in, I need to be allowed to be Me.

Visit Cat Patrick's website for more information.

Review:
Lizzie, Ella and Betsey may look like triplets but in fact the three of them are all clones created illegally by scientists in a genetics research lab. Their mother was the egg donor and gave birth to them but their DNA was all copied from another child. When she found out that two of her babies would be destroyed their mother ran and the family have been in hiding ever since. Worried that they will be discovered she has become obsessed with protecting the girls and she insists that they pretend to be only one person. Each girl gets a different part of the day when they are allowed to leave the house, Ella gets mornings, Lizzie gets afternoons and Betsey gets evenings. At all other times they must remain in their isolated house being home-schooled in the lessons that only one of them gets to actually attend. They must juggle friendships, act the same, dress the same and never, ever be seen in public together.

Cat Patrick always comes up with such unusual stories and I wanted to read The Originals from the minute I read the synopsis. I have no clue where she gets her ideas from but her books always make you think and that is one of the things I love about them. It was really interesting to see how different each of the clones was to each other. Although they are physically identical their personalities are very different, they all have different strengths and weaknesses and they don't agree on anything. In a lot of ways they are like any other sisters, they have their arguments and disagreements but they always have each others backs. Unfortunately because they have to pretend to be one person they have more clashes than most, it can be difficult for them to even agree on their outfits for the day or what to do with their hair. I felt so bad for them the way their mother controlled everything about their lives and the more you learn about her behaviour the more worrying it became.

I can't really talk too much more about the plot for fear of spoilers but I will say I loved the way Sean handled things when he found out what was going on. The relationship between him and Lizzie developed a little too quickly for my taste but he was such a sweet guy and he was so determined to look out for Lizzie and her sisters that you have to like him. The majority of the plot revolves around how difficult it is to have three very different girls pretending to be one person. I had expected more danger, especially when you realise that the mother stole the girls from the lab, but I enjoyed Lizzie's voice and getting to know the girls. The stakes are raised when Lizzie meets Sean and becomes determined to find a way to date him. She starts to realise that her mum is keeping secrets and the girls have to work together to find out what is really going on. There were some interesting twists from that point onwards, a couple that I'd made pretty good guesses at but others that took me completely by surprise. The Originals is a great story, one that raised questions I'm still thinking about days after I finished reading it. I already had Cat Patrick on my auto-buy list and I can't wait to see what crazy idea she comes up with next!

Source: Received from Egmont in exchange for an honest review

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The Originals Blog Tour: Author's Animal Antics with Cat Patrick

It has been a long time since I posted an Author's Animal Antics post but I've always enjoyed them so I was really excited when Cat Patrick offered to share a couple of animal related stories for The Originals blog tour. I loved Cat Patrick's debut novel Forgotten (read my review here) so I couldn't wait to read her latest book The Originals. She always comes up with such unusual stories and the idea of three clones living together and pretending to be one person fascinated me. I'll be posting my review of The Originals later today but I'll tell you right now that it is such a fun read and one I'd definitely recommend.

I glance at the three baby portraits in thick wooden frames.
I feel a familiar prickling on the back of my neck.
Because I know there's another picture somewhere- and the baby in that photo looks identical to the babies on the wall.
Somewhere, there's a photo of the Original.

Ella, Betsey and I look like sisters: triplets, you might think.

But that's not all.

We are clones in hiding. We split our lives and exist as one person in the outside world. And we've always been happy.

But now I've fallen head-over-heels in love . . . and that changes everything.

Because, to let love in, I need to be allowed to be Me.

Visit Cat Patrick's website for more information.

Now please give a very warm welcome to Cat Patrick!

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Cat Patrick

(Image linked from the author's website)

Animal Antics with Cat Patrick, author of The Originals

Thanks for having me on the blog today. As someone with an allergic husband, my family doesn’t have pets, but I do have two animal stories to share. The second is a scaredy cat story—the Cat in the story being me—and the first is related to my book, The Originals, which is about three identical clones who live as one person to hide from the world.

Dumptruck the Dog

A friend teased me about the name of Sean Kelly’s dog in The Originals—Dumptruck—so I thought I’d tell you where it came from.

One of my twins is named Lucy. She’s smart and quirky and likes things her way. We moved to a new town and met a neighbor’s dog for the first time: an adorable Dachshund who also happens to be called Lucy. Two at the time, my Lucy proclaimed that the dog Lucy could clearly not share her name. “Lucy is a girl name, and that is a dog, and she needs a dog name…like Dumptruck.”

The nickname stuck—we call Lucy the dog Dumptruck to this day—and when it came time to describe Sean’s four-legged friend in the book, that’s who was on my mind.

(Note from Sarah: This isn't Cat's picture of Dumptruck, 

it's just an image I found online to give you an idea of what he looks like)

Don’t Bite My Toes

One year when I was very small, my older sister got a kitten for Christmas. The kitten was called Jenny, and she looked like black and white tiger. She was very cute, though not nearly as cute as my yellow lab, Sam.

At the time, my sister and I shared a small bedroom in the back of the house. My bed was the trundle that pulled out from under hers, cause she was older and got to claim things like beds with stationary legs. The only problem was that the trundle was broken, and sometimes either the head or the foot would collapse without warning in the middle of the night. So, for example, when the foot side went, I’d slide out of bed and end up a tiny pile of kid on the floor. (Thanks, Mom and Dad.)

Cute as she was—though not as awesome as Sam—turns out Jenny Kitty was actually kind of a jerk. She was a foot biter. The moment I’d put my feet under the covers at night, Jenny would pounce on them like they were mice, biting and batting at them until they stopped moving. And she had sharp teeth! Living in fear of the tiny kitty, my nighttime regime went something like this:

• Brush teeth
• Run to bed
• Shove feet under covers as quickly and efficiently as possible
• Don’t move a muscle for entire sleeping duration
• Never ever get out of bed

The nighttime hours became all about avoiding a cat-tack. And I got pretty good at it, until one night, all hell broke loose. (Or as much hell as a four-year-old can conjure.) I’d followed the regime. I was stiff as a board, barely breathing. Jenny Kitty was prowling the room like a tiger looking for a lame zebra. But, committed to being still as Han Solo in carbonite, I was winning.

Then the bed broke.

It was the head of the bed that time, and let me tell you: It’s challenging to stay still when the top half of your resting body suddenly plummets to the floor.

My feet moved.

Jenny pounced.

I screamed.

My sister laughed.

If there were a superhero movie about me, and I, Cat, battled villain cats, that night on the trundle bed with the toe cat food would be my origin story. Because, my friends, on that fateful night, I began to fear felines. A few years later, the evil Siamese that attacked my ankles after school when I just wanted to go inside my friend Brad’s house and eat gingerbread cookies smelled my fear. My brother’s cat Nancy hisses because she really is plotting to eat my face off: She just hasn’t made her move yet. The black cat at my friend’s house last night knew I would be powerless when he tried to eat my carrots and ranch dip, so I let him, shaking in terror on the inside.

Irony is sharing a name with something you most fear in life. I guess it could be worse, though. I could be called Airport Bathroom.

********************

Thanks for a fabulous guest post Cat! I did wonder how you came up with the name Dumptruck for Sean's dog - it's such an unusual name for a dog LOL. As you can probably tell from my blog header I love cats, I do know that they have a special ability for sensing people's fear of them though. It's funny how cats are always drawn to people who are either scared or allergic to them!

Don't forget to check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour and drop back later today to read my full review of The Originals.

Review: Forgotten - Cat Patrick

Here's the thing about me: I can see the future in flashes, like memories. But my past is a blank.

I remember what I'll wear tomorrow, and an argument that won't happen until this afternoon. But I don't know what I ate for dinner last night. I get by with the help of notes, my mom and my best friend Jamie, and the system works . . .

Until now. Everything's falling apart.
Jamie's going off the rails.
My mum is lying to me.
And I can't see the boy I adore in my future.

But today, I love him.  And I never want to forget how much . . .

Visit Cat Patrick's website for more information.

Review:
In most ways London is a normal teenager, if you overlook the problem with her memory that is. You see London can remember everything about the future and knows exactly what will happen tomorrow but she remembers nothing of her past. Each night when she goes to bed she knows that by the time she wakes up it will be as if the previous day never happened. The only way she can keep track of her life is by writing notes to herself detailing important events that she can read in the morning when she wakes up.

I don't think I'm capable of writing a review that can do Forgotten justice. Cat Patrick's debut novel is beautifully written and had me captivated from the first page, I literally didn't move until I'd finished reading it. The phone went unanswered and my bladder had to wait because there was no way I was putting the book down even for a minute. Forgotten is just something so unique and it really captured my imagination.

I loved the premise of the story, it was fascinating to think about how strange life would be if your memories were only of things that haven't happened yet. The author has put a lot of thought into how this would work even down to London's confusion about where her classes are on the last day of school - the rest of the year she can use her memories of where she will be sitting tomorrow or next week to guide her to the right class today but at the end of the school year all her memories are of new classes that haven't started yet. It is those kind of little details that make an impossible idea seem plausible and I didn't find myself doubting the way London's mind worked even though it is such an off the wall concept.

London is a great character, she deals with her situation surprisingly well and really grows as the story continues. I have to say that Luke is the character that stole the show for me though, he was so incredibly sweet and supportive of London. Most boys would find it frustrating to date someone who is constantly forgetting them but he shows a lot of patience and their romance was adorable. It was nice to see such a mature couple in a YA book and I'd really like to see more relationships like theirs.

There are also some great mysteries and surprising twists throughout the story. I'm not going to say any more and give you spoilers so you'll just have to read the book to find out what they are. I can't recommend Forgotten highly enough, it is one of my favourite 2011 debuts and I'm excited to read more from Cat Patrick in the future. If you're looking for something completely different you can't go far wrong with this one!

Source: Purchased

Other Reviews:
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