This Vicious Cure (Mortal Coil)

A fun sci-fi dystopian story, This Vicious Cure by Emily Suvada, alternates between Cat and Jun Bei, giving insight into each of their thoughts. Cat is inside a simulated environment which is really in Jun Bei’s mind since Jun Bei took over. Both realities are under duress and fighting to fix its own problems. Memories have been wiped, so Cat is new to most, except for feelings of familiarity. Jun Bei wants to fix the Panacea mortality cure and goes to severe lengths to accomplish her goal. For the first time in her life, Jun Bei feels guilty about harming people and regrets the killing she’s been responsible for in the past. Cat can see everything in the environments she’s in and everyone can see her. She looks perfectly real and solid and she’s undetected unless someone tries to touch her because their hands will go right through her image. The science fiction aspect of this series is fascinating. Embryos were created with specific genetic material to make people great coders/hackers. Thirty generations were created, mixed and born within a short period of time. Only two embryos were grown into people who were born and raised to be coding geniuses, Dax and Mato. The Panacea cure/vaccination will make people immortal while the Hydra virus has been mutating people into Lurkers through the tech panels in their arms. The series comes full circle with a satisfying ending, 5 stars!

This Mortal Coil is at the top of my favorite YA sci-fi/dystopian series. It’s also one of the most underrated, in my opinion.The author has a degree in mathematics and also studied astrophysics. Trust me – it shows in this trilogy. Lots of complex techy talk involving hacking, genetics, splicing, etc. way above my paygrade, but I loved every bit of it. She succeeded in making it seem real and plausible, and I kind of wanted my own genkit while reading this.I thought all the deep, dark secrets were revealed in the last book. Wrong! There are still some jaw-droppers that floored me. With war seemingly imminent and so many power hungry people who think they know best determined to come out on top, the stakes are uber high and so is the tension throughout this fast paced story. I wondered many times who, if anyone, would be left standing when the dust settled. Not everyone makes it. But it’s a very fitting end for these characters who’ve had to fight to survive from too early an age, and I’ll miss every one of them.This is an intelligent, complex, exceptional series I’d highly recommend to sci-fi/dystopian fans, YA readers or not. I’ll read anything this author chooses to write in the future.

This final installment features both Cat and Jun Bei’s point-of-views, alternating every chapter. Frankly, I wasn’t a fan of this, even less since it appeared out of nowhere when the previous installments have been narrated only by Cat. Since Jun Bei hasn’t really been present up until this point, it felt unnatural to suddenly have her narrate every other chapter. This made me feel a bit disconnected to Cat and her story which was the one I was interested in.Suvada wrapped up the story in a thoughtful and resolute way, taking the reader on one last, thrilling ride. I finished the book feeling pretty content. There was just the one thing missing: closure regarding Cat and Cole. Considering they were all over each other by the end of the first book and on the down-low for the entire second book, I hoped the final book would pull at my heartstrings and have their relationship blossom, instead, things are left cooled off and open-ended, to my dismay.Having said that - the book is awesome.

If only the world needed some background about how viruses work.... really - great read, topic and adventure. I will read every book Emily writes

A perfect & bittersweet ending to one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE series! Intelligent scifi with amazing characters. Whatever she writes next, SIGN ME UP!!

PLEASE READ THIS SERIES YOU WON'T REGRET IT

Daughter loves this book series. She can’t stop talking about it!

Arrived swiftly and in excellent condition. I loved the first two books of this trilogy, and I’m excited to read the third.

Perfect condition

Actual rating 4.5 stars.This is hands down one of my most favourite science fiction series read to date. Emily Suvada manages to surprise the reader in each instalment. Face crack of the season for me.This, as a conclusion, had all the plot points I was expecting, but the climactic ending took an emotive humanitarian route (and rightly so) which was a departure from the scrappy band of soldiers fighting for freedom. So half of me wanted an all stakes battle, blood and guts everywhere, casualties, and world at the brink of an apocalypse… and the other half understands that the underlying battle of this series was to be fought in a laboratory and none of that balls-to-the-wall gore can actually play out in that scenario. I think Suvada did justice to this trilogy at the end, but it did not end with that definitive thump I was craving.We see character arcs galore in ‘This Vicious Cure.’ I loved how everyone has to face personal demons in order for the world to change. Hats off to you Suvada, you know how to structure a character driven story with a plot engorged with action.The ending, though slightly sickly sweet (cure Disney theme music) really leaves the reader with a sense of hope and wonder. I actually appreciated it. It was also easy to see that the job of healing the world was not over, neither was the growing developments in science, technology, and biology… each character finds new drive and motivation in the changed climate.I really gelled with Suvada’s writing style. She manages to leave enough space for you to get to fall for a character without bogging you down with too much plot (info dumping) which is prevalent in science fiction. While I have read a few novels around technology and biology merging, and the ramifications of advancing in this area, none of them explored it in detail as much as Suvada. This trope was a character in the storyline in its own right; it wasn’t a plot device. You could see that this biotechnology was the heart and soul of this trilogy, and not a by-the-way aspect to show some futuristic wonder in setting a scene.In hindsight, I think there were a lot of characters to keep track of (especially in book 2) but by the time I started reading ‘This Vicious Cure’ I was used to the cast and it did not feel like a struggle to keep all the characters straight in my head. Even though the pacing was a little slower at the beginning of the novel, it was not noticeably so, and this final instalment flew by and kept me engaged throughout. I only put the book down because I needed to sleep.I don’t want to talk about the characters too much because it will spoil too many plot points for the series, but many of the main cast get a lot more fleshed out, motivations come to the forefront, and we really get to see them test their mettle.A massive recommendation from me. This is a great exploration into a dystopian world where genetic tampering and biotechnology have brought the world to its knees with a masterful plot and interesting, driven characters. This is definitely sitting in my top 10 list.

So many killer moments in this finale. If you’re flipping through reviews just to see if the series is worth it - it is. I whipped through the whole thing in about a week and would certainly recommend picking it up.