BOOK REVIEW: Imitation by Heather Hildenbrand

This is a book review for Imitation by Heather Hildenbrand. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Everyone is exactly like me. There is no one like me. Ven wrestles with these contradicting truths every day. A clone of wealthy eighteen-year-old Raven Rogen, Ven knows everything about the girl she was created to serve: the clothes she wears, the boys she loves, the friends she loves to hate. Yet she’s never met the Authentic Raven face-to-face. Imitations like Ven only get to leave the lab when they’re needed—to replace a dead Authentic, donate an organ, or complete a specific mission. And Raven has never needed Ven . . . until now. When there is an attack on Raven’s life, Ven is thrust into the real world, posing as Raven to draw out the people who tried to harm her. But as Ven dives deeper into Raven’s world, she begins to question everything she was ever told. She exists for Raven, but is she prepared to sacrifice herself for a girl she’s never met?

I was very excited to read this novel. The cover is striking. I am also fascinated by the concept of human cloning. The beginning of this book was very promising. Ven gets called to duty to impersonate her Authentic, Raven Rogen. Raven has been the victim of a kidnapping attempt and they call Ven to impersonate her until they can find the attackers. I know a book about cloning isn't really supposed to be realistic, but there were just so many issues with this plot. First of all, Raven had a boyfriend (Daniel). According to Ven, she was trained in every single aspect of Raven's life except for intimate aspects of it. No one ever even hinted that Raven would have a boyfriend, but wouldn't that be an important fact to mention? Especially since Ven is supposed to be Raven in every single way? 

Ven and the other imitations are trained to impersonate the Authentic by training videos. These videos are of Raven's daily activities, but they are limited. Ven only sees what the people in charge want her to see. I kind of suspected there was a boyfriend during one of the training videos Ven was watching. She noticed that Raven was smiling at someone in a way that she rarely does with her friends or staff. But why would they shut the video off right before the person's image appeared on camera? When Ven is required to impersonate Raven, she recoils whenever Daniel touches or kisses her. That's really not surprising since Ven has never had any contact with the opposite sex and she didn't know how she was supposed to act around him. Even her internal dialogue suggested that she had no idea how Raven would react to Daniel's affections. That is a huge oversight on the part of the people in charge of this program. 

And let's talk about the insta-love . . . why, oh why, do authors insist on doing this??? I am not kidding when I say that it took about two chapters (very short chapters) for Ven and Linc (the bodyguard) to declare their feelings to each other. Linc acted like an ass at first. He acted like a jealous, judgmental idiot when he saw Ven kissing Daniel. This should not have been an issue (or even a surprise to Linc) because 1) Ven and Linc were NOT together and 2) Linc thought Ven was Raven, who was SUPPOSED TO BE WITH DANIEL! Can you tell this part of the plot drove me crazy? I hate it when male characters act judgmental and possessive of the female ones anyway, but it really makes me mad when there is no good reason for it. 

Another issue I had was with Linc and Ven's attitude towards Raven. They were both so judgmental of her and assumed her to be shallow, selfish and spoiled. Yes her activities did seem to point that way in the videos Ven watched, but even Ven admitted she didn't know everything that went on in Raven's life. Neither her, nor Linc, had any clue what Raven really thought about anything. There was also a lot of slut shaming in this book. Both of them basically called Raven a slut numerous times, even though it appeared she was only in a sexual relationship with one guy. Now maybe she had previous sexual relationships, but I don't think you should call a woman a slut because she enjoys sex. So yeah, that was annoying as well.

There were a few action packed scenes in this book. There were a few plot twists that kept it just interesting enough to want to keep reading. I do not believe I will be reading the sequel though.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip! There was just not enough in this book to make me enjoy it.