WOW – Tattoo Atlas

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted by Breaking the Spine. This feature highlights an upcoming release that I am excited about.

Tattoo Atlas by Tim Floreen

Release Date: October 18, 2016

Total Pages: 284

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction

Goodreads  •  Amazon  •  Barnes and Noble

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Goodreads Book Description

A teenage sociopath is “fixed” after he gets an implant that’s supposed to cure him in this thrilling coming of age tale from the author of Willful Machines.

A year ago, Rem Braithwaite watched his classmate Franklin Kettle commit a horrific crime.

Now, apart from the nightmares, life has gone back to normal for Rem. Franklin was caught, convicted, and put away in juvenile detention for what he did. The ordeal seems to be over.

Until Rem’s mother selects Franklin as a test subject for an experimental brain procedure intended to “cure” him of his cruel and violent impulses. Suddenly Rem’s memories of that day start coming back to the surface. His nightmares become worse than ever. Plus he has serious doubts about whether his mother’s procedure will even work. Can evil really just be turned off?

Then, as part of Franklin’s follow-up testing, he and Rem are brought face to face, and Rem discovers…Franklin does seem different. Despite everything, Rem finds himself becoming friends with Franklin. Maybe even something more than friends.

But when another of their classmates turns up dead, Rem’s world turns upside-down yet again. Franklin insists that he’s innocent, that he’s cured, but Rem doesn’t know what to believe. Is someone else responsible for this new murder, or is Franklin fated to stay a monster forever? And can Rem find out the answer to this question before the killer, whoever it is, comes after him too?

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Why I’m Excited

Whaaaaaaat. This sounds so intense, and murdery, thrilly intense is exactly what I want right around Halloween! This idea about a medical procedure that would make an evil person good is so interesting to me. Can you imagine what our World might be like if this kind of thing actually did exist and actually did work? We would be living in such a different place. I can’t wait to see how this plays out in the context of the book, and what the repercussions are. Part of me wants it to be a success, because that would just be badass. Then maybe Franklin could redeem himself by helping to catch another bad guy. I would be lying, though, if I said there wasn’t a part of me that wants Franklin to be sooooo evil that he leaves nothing but horrific crimes and hell in his wake, because those are fun characters to read about. Also, really loving the name Rem.