Despite the unlikely premise, I enjoyed Dualed, the debut novel - and I think first in a series - by Elsie Chapman. In this dystopian world, two versions of each child/teenager exist and only one can survive. The two genetic twins are raised separately and pitted against each other in a battle to the death to ensure that only the strongest of the species gets to carry on into adulthood. The story focuses on West Grayer who has spent her life preparing to kill her "Alt" when the time comes, but events shake her faith in herself and make her question whether she deserves to be the surviving twin. There's a bit of romance, a lot of adventure, and a lot of questioning the value of life and survival and comparing one's own worth against other possible alternate versions of oneself (or metaphorically of what one could have been if circumstances had been different).
The story is well-written and the character of West is relatable although at times I wanted to shake her out of her misery and get her to make a decision one way or the other about her future. This is also not a dystopia for the faint-hearted. There's lots of child-on-child fighting and gore, a little reminiscent of the Hunger Games although the plot is very different. The one thing that weakens this story for me - which is paradoxically also its strength or at least its selling point - is the premise. It's simply hard to buy into a world where the society creates two versions of each person with the aim that one of them will be killed. If genetic engineering is that sophisticated, surely the society could simply engineer strong-minded children or at least put them in more likely situations to make them want to fight and survive than wasting resources on killing "Alts". It may be that the premise is explained in more plausible detail later in the series, but I found myself struggling to suspend my disbelief so I could immerse myself in West's story. There is also not much in the way of the characters questioning why the society developed in this way and what might be done to change it. It seems that for a group of powerful blood-thirsty kids, there would at least be a possibility that some of them might attack the system rather than each other. So, yes, I was able to suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the story, but the premise did get in the way of fully immersing myself in the characters and the society because I had too many questions about how this society came into being and why no one tried to stop it.
The story is well-written and the character of West is relatable although at times I wanted to shake her out of her misery and get her to make a decision one way or the other about her future. This is also not a dystopia for the faint-hearted. There's lots of child-on-child fighting and gore, a little reminiscent of the Hunger Games although the plot is very different. The one thing that weakens this story for me - which is paradoxically also its strength or at least its selling point - is the premise. It's simply hard to buy into a world where the society creates two versions of each person with the aim that one of them will be killed. If genetic engineering is that sophisticated, surely the society could simply engineer strong-minded children or at least put them in more likely situations to make them want to fight and survive than wasting resources on killing "Alts". It may be that the premise is explained in more plausible detail later in the series, but I found myself struggling to suspend my disbelief so I could immerse myself in West's story. There is also not much in the way of the characters questioning why the society developed in this way and what might be done to change it. It seems that for a group of powerful blood-thirsty kids, there would at least be a possibility that some of them might attack the system rather than each other. So, yes, I was able to suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the story, but the premise did get in the way of fully immersing myself in the characters and the society because I had too many questions about how this society came into being and why no one tried to stop it.
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