Ringer

Ringer is the sequel to Replica and continues the story of Gemma and Lyra. Gemma has returned to her parents after learning the secret of Haven, the base off the coast of Florida where they're cloning children, and Lyra and her companion Caelum have been relocated to Tennessee. Gemma's dad was a bigwig in the whole cloning thing, so he has a lot of pull, and he promised Gemma that no harm would come to Lyra and Caelum. However when Gemma overhears a conversation indicating her father may have lied, she takes off to find her friends, accompanied by her boyfriend Pete.

After seeing some initial mixed reviews, I was expecting this to be a bit disappointing, but I actually liked it a lot. I liked Gemma more in this one- in the first book she didn't do a lot for me- but here I may have preferred her POV to Lyra's. Lyra of course is the clone perspective, and I liked Caelum a little more in this one too.  We get some nice twists and turns, lots of action, and even some some nuanced discussion of what makes us human. One perspective I would have liked to see more of is Kristina, the mother of Gemma. She medicates and drinks herself into a haze to avoid the reality of her life, but when Gemma is in danger she decides to take things in hand. I would have liked more.

The detectives perspective was welcome as well. Lyra runs into a detective in her flight, and when something doesn't feel right to him, he decides to take a closer look. This is a nice way of showing how the kindness and decency of a stranger can make a difference. So all in all I liked the character work here, and of course we get a bit of the villains' perspective as well, given the ethical landmines involved in the cloning project. If there's one complaint it's that the writing seemed a little flowery at times, almost as if Lauren Oliver was trying to make this read a little more literary? That could just be me though, I've never noticed it with her writing before.

On balance I would say Ringer is a definite win for me. We get a lot more of the aftermath of the Haven disaster, Gemma and Lyra grow as people (especially Lyra), you have a nasty replica called Calliope who wreaks havoc, and it's just a fun clone story. I like the dual format and I think it mostly works. One of my favorite aspects of the book is the question of who is really the bad guy? The scientists who claim replicas have no soul and are therefore not people? The initial reaction is to be horrified at that, until certain replicas kill without remose and you're forced to ask- are they people?