The story takes place in the not-so-distant future where we meet Vince Nilsson, a young prodigy of science with a sociopathic streak. After being scorned by his girlfriend Melissa, he comes up with a solution: kill Melissa, harvest her DNA and create a “better” version of her that will love and respect him.

Soon enough Vince finds himself running his own company, Emergence Inc. which promises everything from a “younger, newer model” of a partner to the eradication of a life-threatening illness from someone’s genetics. As a result, Vince falls deeper into the rabbit hole of striving for perfection, manipulating people’s genes and developing a God complex whilst constantly battling his own negative thoughts…

Fast-forward almost 20 years and we are introduced to Leo Oaks and Sara Hawking. In a world where cloning has occurred yet still has its taboos, they find they both have their own ties to Emergence Inc and not everything (or everyone) is as it seems.

Well, what a puzzling ride that was! So my interest was totally piqued after reading the blurb. From the offset, I was getting vibes of Tarantino meets Weird Science with a Black Mirror twist and could see the potential. However I did feel the story didn’t quite scratch the itch and I found it quite confusing to follow at times. The story flits between different character’s in a way that’s a little erratic and I found it hard to connect with the characters. As a result, it made it difficult to keep up with where we were in the timeline of events. I like chaotic, but at times it did feel a bit confusing, even for me!

There are some interesting aspects in this book: the striving for the impossible “perfection” (arguably relevant in today’s world) and also the age old questions of science vs religion. It also raised some interesting questions on the ethics behind cloning which I would’ve loved to have seen more developed in the story.
Also there are a number of triggers that come with this book; to name a few there’s violence, drug use, suicide, mass shootings and rape.

On the whole I think there was something lacking for me with this book, but I would say if you like the idea of a darker/sexier version of Altered Carbon laced with a little of The Shining, give this one a go.

ARC provided by NetGalley for an Honest Review
2.5 Stars????
What in the world did I just read??? I was initially really intrigued by the blurb for this book. As days past the rating continually dropped and I became more hesitant. Now I'm just left pondering the insanity of it all. The trigger warnings let you know some crazy sh*t is about to go down but personally I thought it was a little overzealous. While I think the trigger warnings sort of exceeded the crazy in the book all I'm left feeling is how overall weird it was and why?!?!?. The beginning starts just as the blurb states, sans any surprises really. The start is probably the most deranged of the book and while that madness does not let up, it really sets the stage for the rest of what's to come! It is rather disturbing at times, the man behind the clones (Vince) always trying to mask his depravity and explain it away. It all starts as a way for him to basically make cloned sex slaves of his ex one right after the other when time after time, he keeps killing them and has to continue to make more smh. After awhile I felt there were just too many characters to get straight which made this already confounding book that much more hard to grasp. I don't get the opening part with the Queen, in the sense of what was the point! In the end I'm not sure what the author was trying to get across other than clones=bad and they will take over the world! In fact aside from two non-clones, were there even any normal humans left? It was a bit intense to also include a school shooting and replace all those involved with clones and impair peoples memories. That was all kinds of f'd up especially given how commonplace that is in the US. It just felt a little too far overboard/taboo and considering the many other crazy moments in this book that's saying a lot! Also I feel like I missed things here and there as my mind could only take so much. And the man behind it all Vince, what happened with him? After all he did, I'm to believe he's happily married and even has a kid? I dunno it's all just a little to wild, weird and out there for me. He replaces his own son after he tries to undermine him and then what???? As this was an ARC I'm not sure if this will be the final copy as the book could also use some serious editing and formatting. Crazy read, certainly not for everyone.

This was a very strange read. The plot was interesting but the story kind of fell flat. I also was not able to connect with any of the characters.

Well despite the warnings this was weird. I like Tarantino and I've watched most of his films but this was something else. I didn't get it. the parts didn't really mess well and I kept thinking it was a series of short stories. The story line had potential and it was a unique take on clones, but it just fell flat. I could see where the author wanted to go but it just didn't work for me.

I really wanted to read something completely different and this book certainly delivered on that. It’s not for the faint hearted or a sensitive reader and I was warned before reading which intrigued me all the more. It really opens your mind to the possibility of cloning and how far could it be taken in the future to creating that ‘perfect’ (if there is such a thing) being. I would highly recommend if you want you want to take a step into the future and the possibilities it can hold but if you are someone that doesn’t like violence then it’s probably not for you.

I'm grateful to NetGalley for allowing me access to this prior to publication, but I'm struggling to form coherent thoughts about this one after having recently finished reading.
The focus on cloning and exploration of the dilemmas posed by scientific breakthroughs is definitely something that encouraged me to pick this up. The lacklustre reviews and emphasis on trigger warnings was a little off-putting, but I was prepared to try it. It will certainly not be to everyone's tastes, and, while there are elements of it that I think warrant recommendation, it is a book that I can't help feel would benefit greatly from some further edits.
In the publicity material we're told this is for fans of Tarantino and American Psycho, amongst others. The influence of these two in particular is evident, but something about the style/content felt like a pale imitation.
After a bizarre opening with an attack on the Queen, we open the novel with our focus on high school genius, Vince Nilsen. He is obsessed with his girlfriend, Melissa, and much is made of his love of scientific study. As someone with a lot of money at his disposal, Vince is a character who has trawled the internet, dark web and all manner of places to find the latest innovations and scientific knowledge. There is no doubt that he could be a character who could change the world...but what we get is a character who uses his ability for intensely selfish gain. Vince - in secret - finds a way to successfully clone humans. In his quest for the perfect girlfriend, Vince becomes a killer...time and time again.
The opening section focusing on Vince was almost enough to make me not bother finishing this. He was a character who had potential, but he was presented as a classic narcissist. His detachment towards the others he interacted with suggested a highly disturbed psychological state, and the attitude towards the female characters was repulsive. Page after page focusing on the sexual gratification he achieves, and killing in order to attempt his ideal woman - a submissive whose only aim is to please her master - was not something I found remotely entertaining.
Imagining that we might get further details about Vince in some attempt to 'flesh him out' I continued reading. What we quickly shifted to then was a seemingly different story focusing on characters that appeared from nowhere.
There were attempts to loosely connect the myriad of characters with the one we'd focused on at the start. There were some scenes that encouraged you to consider the ethics of cloning and the potential implications - for good and bad - if science is allowed to develop without clear controls. However, nothing felt tied-up and with so many characters involved it was hard to really develop much interest in any of them.
There will be fans of this, but I have to say I'm not one of them.

I tried to like this book. I truly did but I didn't. The synopsis was really fascinating and truly intrigued me to read the book but the book actually fell a little flat. The content was creepy, as promised, but a little too dark for my tastes and while the author's writing was good as well as the buildup, the characters weren't very interesting. I was still okay with the book in the first part with Vince but as the second part started, with new characters, I stopped liking the book and had to force myself to finish the whole thing. The characters, not counting Vince since he's a psychopath, were very very unrelatable. When I was reading the book I had so many wtf thoughts because the way they thought etc was, in my opinion, very abnormal. I think my review might've been different if the storyline was different, maybe continuing with Vince's story only and not adding the other characters or something else altogether. Also, I'm not sure this book can be classified as YA. The perspective it was told from was of course teenagers but there was so much graphic and sexual content for it to be classified YA. I'm not sure I can give this book any more than 2 stars unfortunately, even though I really wanted to like the book.

The concept of this book is very intriguing, but the execution sadly was flat. Even then, I was only interested in Vince's arc and when the timeline switched to other characters, I just didn't wanna continue. Everything was too rushed and too on the nose.

This book definitely has a lot of trigger warnings and I mean a lot, so do not read this book if you are a sensitive reader. This book in my opinion is way too graphic to be published with a demographic for teens/young adult. There are too many storylines that never end by joining up so they end unfinished which as a reader is extremely irritating. The characters aren't very interesting and are extremely cringey and irritating making reading about them not fun in the slightest. However the author does have a fluid writing style making it easy to read but that's really the only positive thing I have to say about this novel which is disappointing as the synopsis made the book out to be something really interesting and worthwhile which it was not.

This book is bananas and I definitely wouldn't classify it as romantic in any way. First, the positives:

- The author's writing style is quick and easy to read.
- The worldbuilding is decent, though I'd say it's a rather optimistic view of the future as it envisions the world as basically the same as the present day but with more tech.

And now, the negatives:
- There are multiple storylines throughout the book that never really come together.
- The voices of the characters aren't distinct and they all blur together because of how one dimensional they are.
- Most of the male characters seem like they come straight out of 4Chan.
- For some reason the author is super explicit about women giving oral sex to men but not about men giving oral sex to women. If you're going to write a sexually graphic novel, it's hypocritical to be explicit about one but not the other.
- The amount of dialogue is unnecessary and detracts from the overall story line.
- The book's audience is unclear. It's mostly told from the perspective of immature, sex-obsessed teenagers, but it's way too graphic to be YA.

Overall, if I hadn't been given a free copy in exchange for a review, I wouldn't have bothered to finish reading this and I definitely won't be recommending it to anyone.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Holy trigger warnings. I'm not going to lie, but, Bodies: A Romantic Bloodbath definitely has a bunch of them. Other than that, this isn't my first book to introduce clones and such.. but it was definitely the darkest/creepiest one. Which is probably why I devoured this book so freaking quickly. Because of all the darkness within it.

The characters? Well they were entertaining in their own little ways but I definitely cringed at some of the parts. Plus seeing their inner demons was interesting to a point but definitely made me sad in others. I honestly wasn't expecting to go through such an emotional ride when it came to this book. Mostly because I got no warnings of what to expect that would make me feel these emotions.

I will say, that if you can get past all the trigger warnings and find the interesting parts of the book - like all the scientific shit and clones - you could enjoy it somewhat. I also think if I knew what to expect beforehand, well, then I would've been better prepared for what was about to come my way instead of being blindsided.

All I'm going to say is that it's interesting and you might want a bottle of wine open next to you. No glass needed. You're welcome.

I just finished reading this novel and im sitting back and wondering what i just read. I loved the writing and how it flowed but for the life of me couldnt connect to the characters. I felt some parts werent need in this story overall the story was okay. I didnt love not did i hate it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book but it was actually a really great book. The idea that we can create the perfect person is eerie. I highly recommend this one