Brandon Eriks is a seventeen year old typical high school
bad boy, with tattoos and piercings to prove, on the
surface. This is a careful façade he has created in front
of his fellow mates. A deeper reason being he would do
anything drastic to actually get a reaction out of his
mostly work-involved parents to see if they care. Hiding
in his room, he is a brilliant hacker whose work no one
has been able to track till one fine day when he breaks a
mirror.
Apparently Brandon has a good double, OBran, living in
the mirror who now wants to trade lives with him.
Starting off he begins by forcefully taking off Brandon's
piercings, followed by complete change in wardrobe and
skinning off those permanent tattoos. In the real world
Brandon is thinking he is losing his mind seeing his
mirror image pull off feats which should be impossible
and the reaction the world is showing at his cleaned up
image. Then, there is Emma. The one girl who has managed
to get inside his walls and creep into his heart, no
matter how much he denies it. But before long, Brandon
suddenly finds himself trapped inside a digital realm
while OBran lives his life. Now he has to figure a way to
trade back or he will remain trapped, programming forever
till he old and wrinkly while no one notices OBran is not
him.
Brilliant brilliant brilliant debut!! I feel overwhelmed
after finishing DUPLICITY. N.K. Traver has created a
world which fully pulled me in. It is vibrant and
terrifying in its own right. It is Matrix meeting a young
badass rebellious teen. Books written in first POV have
never been my first preference for reading and nor are
they usually able to pull me in the story as much as
other POVs. In case of DUPLICITY, the tone and the prose
used by Ms. Traver, I was living in the mind of Brandon,
living his life. He is a three --dimensional character
with amazing depths. It has been over a decade since I
was a teenager but I connected on a level with Brandon I
never imagined; his insecurities and how he avoids
showing, even admitting, how much he cares and the façade
he maintains. The secondary characters just add depth to
the story and Brandon, revealing a new side to him with
each interaction.
I finished this book in one sitting and then picked it up
to re-read because I wanted more. Each chapter is a
thrill ride with twists leaving you on the edge of your
seat. There are emotional moments of despair, loss, death
(this one broke my heart), moments of questioning the
sanity and then some humour to lighten the mood. I have
read a few other books in YA on overuse and technology
gone wrong but DUPLICITY is a class in its own and a
breathe of fresh air in this genre of science fiction,
cyberthriller. And what an ending!! Ms. Traver blended
the world of computers, excitement of hacking, bad boy
personas and a regular teenager looking for love and
attention brilliantly. Along with all this, she did not
forget to remind us that every action has a consequence
and sometimes even the best of intentions are not always
the best for the society. Without wanting to sound like a
broken record, pick this book up immediately. It is not
to be missed by all the fans of the genre. N.K. Traver is
an author to watch out for and I cannot wait to read more
from her.
A computer-hacking teen. The girl who wants to save him.
And
a rogue mirror reflection that might be the death of them
both.
In private, 17-year-old Brandon hacks bank accounts for
thousands of dollars just for the hell of it. In public,
he
looks like any other tattooed bad boy with a fast car and
devil-may-care attitude. He should know, he’s worked hard
to
maintain that façade. With inattentive parents who move
cities every two years, he’s learned not to get tangled up
in friends and relationships. So he’ll just keep living
like
a machine, all gears and wires.
Then two things shatter his carefully-built image: Emma,
the
kind, preppy girl who insists on looking beneath the
surface
— and the small matter of a mirror reflection that starts
moving by itself. Not only does Brandon’s reflection have
a
mind of its own, but it seems to be grooming him for
something— washing the dye from his hair, yanking out his
piercings, swapping his black shirts for … pastels.
Changes
he can’t explain to his classmates, who think he’s having
an
identity crisis, and certainly not to nosy Emma, who
thinks
this is his backward apology for telling her to get lost.
Then Brandon’s reflection tells him: it thinks it can live
his life better, and it’s preparing to trade places.
And when it pulls Brandon through the looking-glass, not
only will he need all his ill-gotten hacking skills to
escape, but he’ll have to face some hard truths about who
he’s become. Otherwise he’ll be stuck in a digital hell
until he’s old and gray, and Emma and his parents won't
even
know he's gone.
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