Devil in the Microscope by Ryan Decaria
Genre: YA science fiction
Rating: 4/5 stars
Anika has been on the run her whole life, all fifteen years, and she’s sick of it. When opportunity knocks, she jumps at the chance to meet her father. But life with him isn’t as charming as she’d hoped. It turns out that in a town full of mad scientists, Anika’s father is the maddest.
Anika wasn’t a lonesome cowboy wandering the range, but her longing for home was the central theme of this book. She pursued a stable home for her friends even when she couldn’t obtain it for herself. I enjoyed reading such an old trope presented in a teen science fiction.
What I liked: I loved how the villain, Anika’s father, was so likeable. He’d make pancakes for breakfast and interact with Anika like a sweet dad should, and then he’d run off to hunt down and kill a rogue science experiment. I could never decide if he was truly evil, and I liked that uncertainty.
What I didn’t like: For some reason, this read like a middle grade book instead of YA, so every time the YA content appeared, it was startling and disengaged me from the story. It may have been the repetitive sentence structure (Anika did this. Blake did that. Billie did this. Claire did that.) There were a few typos I noticed that should have been fixed in proofreading as well.
Staci Olsen, Author/Editor 