The Gardener

The Gardener
by S.A. Bodeen

Mason has never known his father, but longs to. All he has of him is a DVD of a man whose face is never seen, reading a children's book. One day, on a whim, he plays the DVD for a group of comatose teens at the nursing home where his mother works. One of them, a beautiful girl, responds. Mason learns she is part of a horrible experiment intended to render teenagers into autotrophs - genetically engineered, self-sustaining life-forms who don't need food or water to survive. And before he knows it, Mason is on the run with the girl, and wanted, dead or alive, by the mysterious mastermind of this gruesome plan, who is simply called The Gardener.

Will Mason be forced to destroy the thing he's longed for most?

To be totally honest, I was disappointed in this book. It had gotten great reviews and I loved her earlier book, "The Compound." The concept for this book intrigued me. Turning teens into self-sufficient soldiers...cool.

While I thought Mason was a really interesting character and I liked the relationship that he had with his mother...I spent most of my time mentally yelling at Mason. Though there was a lot of action, Mason spent most of the time running around oblivious to all of the things that seemed blindingly obvious to me. If he had been a little more intuitive I would have enjoyed the rest of the book a lot more.