Review: The Rules

The Rules
Project Paper Doll #1
Stacey Kade
Disney Hyperion
4.23.2013

Blurb from the Publisher:

Five simple rules. Ariane Tucker has followed them since the night she escaped from the genetics lab where she was created, the result of combining human and extraterrestrial DNA. Ariane’s survival—and that of her adoptive father—depends on her ability to blend in among the full-blooded humans in a small Wisconsin town, to hide in plain sight at her high school from those who seek to recover their lost (and expensive) “project.”
But when a cruel prank at school goes awry, it puts her in the path of Zane Bradshaw, the police chief’s son and someone who sees too much. Someone who really sees her. After years of trying to be invisible, Ariane finds the attention frightening—and utterly intoxicating. Suddenly, nothing is simple anymore, especially not the rules.

Our Thoughts On:

                The Rules are simple, there are only 5, and sometimes it is the very last Rule that will destroy them all.

 1. Never trust anyone.

2. Remember they are always searching.

3. Don’t get involved.

4. Keep your head down.

5. Don’t fall in love.

                Ariane Tucker’s name has a past that haunts her constantly. This name has a history that is catching up with her present, and carrying a dead girl’s name is like a ticking time bomb when the truth comes out. There is a giant corporation in Ariane’s town, one that she knows about all too well. In fact GTX is Ariane’s, this Arianes, birthplace, although it was also her prison. Ariane has a dangerous secret, one that she has been hiding from for over 10 years; that she is not quite human. In fact her parentage can be said to be, well, extraterrestrial in lineage somewhere, but Ariane could not say for herself, since she has never met any other hybrids.

                Imaginations could not even bring out the horrors that Ariane has seen while being in the constraints of her former captivity in GTX and keeping out of their radar has been a struggle these past years. Ariane has been steadfast in keeping under the radar, in being mediocre so that she does not gain attention from school, friends, or other people. Keeping herself along the Rules has been paramount in her survival and in her hiding, but Ariane soon finds that there are some things worth fighting for in life.

                Running from betrayal and fighting to save her friends is keeping Ariane in the GTX spotlight, but the hardest thing she soon finds that she has to overcome is to be ensnared by someone closest to you. The Rules will grip readers  in layers of treachery and hidden agendas steeped in romance and internal turmoil. Ariane Tucker’s dilemma will reel readers in as she struggles to survive against all odds, while also she yearns for the basic of things safety and freedom. Her freedom to life and decision, something that she has kept from herself as she struggled to keep out of notice and keep alive and Ariane has something that she wants to live for now more than ever. With a romance that begins from a lie, Ariane’s relationships and history with entrench readers into an amazing story that keeps powerful all the way to the last page.

                The Paper Doll Project is as deceiving and dangerous as it sounds and this series is off to a breathtaking start filled with Rules that are at some point, meant to be broken if one truly wants to live.