Reviewed for VPRC. Not my cup of tea and a very long-winded way to get to the point. Fans of the action-packed Muchamore of the past will be disappointed. In the not too distant future a boy called Harry and a girl called Charlie meet after Charlie's left-over home-made explosives from a Year 8 science project are used to injure a starting quarterback in a Los Vegas high school. The culprit is Charlie's older sister's boyfriend who wants to be the QB but somehow all the blame gets placed on her and she goes to prison for 4 years. In that time, only Harry believes her and when she is eventually released, he is there for her with gifts and support.
Meanwhile the world itself has gone troppo....people are genetically engineering themselves to be stronger and smarter and clean up their skin , but also deadly mutated viruses have been released that are killing the old and very young and also weird altered bio-organisms roam the planet.
Charlie discovers that life after jail is tough as she gets picked on at school , refused entry to Community program and generally shunned because of her past history as a mad bomber. Then she is offered something she can't turn down - making illegal genetic modifications for people and getting paid a fortune for it. Harry on the other hand is making money writing articles and posting click-bait items in the only newspaper in Los vegas not controlled by the family of the boy who blew up the QB ( who is now married to Charlie's sister).
What then follows is a rambling account of the next few years where Harry modifies himself and refuses to see Charlie because he discovers she is sleeping with someone else. Where Charlie's disabled brother Ed and her girlfriend's orphaned child come into the picture and Charlie and Harry make up and battle zombies ( people who have been genetically modified to be permanently happy which has left some of them insane).
All in all, its a tale of revenge ( eventually) bad luck and bad choices that I only finished because I had to. I think Muchamore has tried to squash too much into one story which left me a bit overwhelmed. ( )