Nine – by Rachelle Dekker (2020)

Is it possible to make a human being that is devoid of any kind of free will, the ability to make decisions of one’s choosing? In this novel, a secretive scientific company has bred genetically-altered children to be physically superior, obey orders without question, and become what might be called super-soldiers. They are given numbers instead of names, and treated like robots. But one of the scientists, Olivia, spends time alone with “Nine”, one of the teenage girls, and gives her a human name – Lucy. She tells Lucy that she has the ability to think for herself and make decisions. The company decides that Olivia has become a liability and has her murdered. Before she dies, Olivia wipes away all Lucy’s memories and tells her to flee. Lucy ends up walking into a diner and meets Zoe, a young waitress who takes Lucy under her wing.

Read more: Nine – by Rachelle Dekker (2020)

The majority of the story describes Zoe and Lucy running for their lives, trying to evade the evil scientific company, being captured, escaping, and running again. The book is heavily action-based. Every fight, struggle, shooting, and torture is described. It reminded me of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, only with younger main characters.

I found the premise of the book to be interesting – can a human who is genetically engineered to basically be a robot ever develop a conscience and exercise free will? But the book was so heavy on non-stop action that it became tiresome. It needed some breaks when the main characters got to do something other than shooting and fighting and stabbing and running.

The author, Rachelle Dekker, is the daughter of well-known Christian author Ted Dekker. This book was published by a division of Baker Publishing Group, a Christian company. Quite frankly, I would not exactly categorize as “Christian fiction”. It was a clean read in the sense that there was no swearing or sexual scenes. But the amount of violence seemed excessive, and there really was no spiritual context to the story. I did finish the book, but it was not one of the better reads of this year.