The Gardener is another futuristic sci-fi thriller from S.A. Bodeen.
Mason wants to become a biologist. He gets a wonderful offer from TroDyn, the lab that dominates his home town, but his mother refuses to let him go. Is it because she resents her employer, or because there is deeper bad blood between her and the company? After Mason meets a strange, nearly catatonic girl at the nursing home his mother works in, answers start coming in an unstoppable flood. Answers he isn't quite sure he wants, as well as questions to which only TroDyn has the answer. Is it really possible to create a human autotroph? And why would anyone do such a thing? Mason has only twenty-four hours to figure out the answers to these questions, twenty-four hours until the girl he rescued shuts down forever.
I am a really bad summery writer, if I hadn't already mentioned that. I can't figure out if that blurb up there makes the book sound more or less exciting than it really is. The sentence-thing on the front of the book is more misleading than that is, at least in my opinion. The Greenhouse doesn't really grow humans . . . at least in the technical sense.
Like The Compound, this book tackles a problem that could become a huge disaster in the near future. For S.A. Bodeen's first book the problem was nuclear warfare. For this book, it's the problem of growth of population/rate of food production. This hasn't happened yet, in the setting of the book, it's just that people are trying to figure out how to stop it before it happens. Or to be prepared for it before it happens.
One thing I don't like is that you know what one of the creepy parts are before you even open the book. It says it right on the inside flap. Of course, there is another creepy part, near the end, when they're in the Greenhouse, but they could've held the suspense out a little bit longer, couldn't they have?
The characters are solid, I suppose. 'The girl' still remains a mystery, even after she gives up plenty of secrets. Jack is a bit washy, in my opinion. And I know this sounds really, weird, but Mason is such a strange name for the main character. He just doesn't seem like a 'Mason'. Maybe a 'James' or a . . . I don't know. I just can't get my head wrapped around the fact that his name is Mason. And the girl's name, well, I find that one strange as well, but maybe I've been polluted the The Curse Workers. Because 'the girl' is nice and happy and friendly and the character she shares a name with . . . isn't.
And of course, there's the happy, fairytale ending that offers up next-to-no explanation. Leaves a lot of questions, if you get me. But the questions aren't numerous or big enough to hint at a sequel. I suppose I can stop being an over analytical-book freak, but that's my job on here, isn't it? So, let me just say that I think that happy endings are all good and well, but I would like some explanation to how they come about. Like . . . well, I'll let you read about it.
Also, I cannot make myself generate any fear of the Gardner, even as 'the girl' is so clearly terrified of him. The fear is an emotion that someone tried hard to create, but it's still like someone threw a pebble into a dark well trying to hit their mark and missed. It might help, though, if you take your time with the book, instead of reading it within the space of the afternoon. The connections that you make to the characters will probably be stronger, as will the suspense and the emotion. Because the friend who recommended this to me loved it.
Anyway, whether The Greenhouse will grow (ha ha) on you or not, it's your choice to find out. Just don't let it grow on you too much, or else you might find yourself forever rooted in the pages of a near catastrophe, trying to drink the light and the water as the rest of the world starves around you.
The author has her own website, that has news about her newest novels and series. I'll let you check it out for yourself: http://www.rockforadoll.com/
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