The Gardener by S.A.Bodeen

Living in Melby Falls surrounded by the almighty corporation TroDyn can change the way you view your future, and this is especially true for Mason. He sees what the corporation has done to his mother and wants no part of it. Mason plans to attend Standford and get out of town, but there’s a catch….he doesn’t have the money for Stanford unless he gets a scholarship that requires him to work for TroDyn. Mason is in a catch-22. But one night changes his entire life….

Mason knew his mother was keeping secrets, but he didn’t know how big those secrets were. When he opens his mother’s private documents, the secrets she’s been hiding from him confuses him even more…and they all involve TroDyn. Mason decides to confront his mother at work, and when he gets there he sees something very creepy. Accidentally, he awakens one of them and when she begs for help, he takes her, one of TroDyn’s best kept experimental secrets, with him. And the chase begins…

I’ve been wanting to read this book, and it was a pleasant surprise to see it on my front door when I came home one day. Combining science with fiction, S.A. Bodeen has written another great YA thriller. The topics this author has taken on are not in the regular norm of topics, but that’s what makes her stand out in the crowd. She takes the bleak scenario of the world food bank vs. the world population explosion and creates a fictionalized scientific way to combat that, but then continues to explore what would happen if could be used in an ulterior way the experiment was created for. Students who’ve read The Compound or enjoy YA thrillers, will want to pick this up. Perfect for all middle and high school readers.