Eli Frieden, Amber Laska, Tori Pritel, Malik Bruder, and Hector Amani find out that they and six other kids in their perfect town of Serenity, New Mexico, are clones of criminal masterminds as part of an experiment called ‘Project Osirisʼ through a note that Eliʼs friend, Randy, left him after his parents sent him away to a boarding school. The objective is to see if people have evil in their genes or are born evil. The townʼs motto is “Honesty, harmony, and contentment”. Everyone is taught to be good and are only taught about war, murder, or bad things as proof that Serenity is the perfect place. The clone’s parents are all scientists part of the experiment and all of the other kids are just normal to fill the impression of a normal town. Eli & Co. make a plan to get out of Serenity while escaping the Surety and taking out the barrier that makes them sick when they go out of town. They go through with it, but they arenʼt fully able to take out the barrier and have to jump out of the speeding truck. Eli, Amber, Tori, and Malik make it, but Hector dies in the explosion. The rest walk for a while, then jump onto a train and arrive at Colorado city. They take a taxi to Randyʼs boarding school, and he welcomes them in.
I thought that this book was really good. I liked the idea of an entire fake town and cloning experiments. I thought it was interesting to see the main characters learn about the real world for the first time in their lives, and learning that they were all cloned from criminal masterminds.