Virals by Kathy Riechs

VIRALS by KATHY REICHS

Movie Rating: R for strong language
Book Rating: @@
Swearing: think of every imaginable swear word out there take out a few of the bigger ones and that's your answer
Inappropriate Scenes: None
Genre: Sci-fi
# of Pages: 454 (hardcover)
Publisher: Razorbill
LLTB:  "I didn't learn anything from this book. Sad, really, but there it is."


Back Blurb:
  
   Adventure has always been in fourteen-year-old Tory Brennan's blood. After all, she is the niece of world-famous forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. So when she moves to middle of nowhere Morris Island, South Carolina, to live with a marine biologist dad she's never known, Tory does the best she can to adjust to her new life.
  There she meets a group of local kids who are just as "Sci-Phile" as she is--science geeks who've grown up exploring the backwoods marshlands of nearby Loggerhead Island. But there's something strange going on at the Loggerhead Research Institute...maybe even something deadly. After rescuing a stray wolfdog pup
from a top-secret lab, Tory and her friends are exposed to a rare strain of canine parvovirus, changing them--and their DNA--forever.
  Now, with heightened senses and canine-quick reflexes, they'll have to solve a cold case murder that's suddenly become very hot..that is, if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer's scent.
Fortunately, they are now more than friends.
They are a pack.

They are VIRALS.

My Review:
   
    First off, just from reading the back blurb my interest spiked. DNA experiments? I enjoy that stuff. A lot! (that's why I love the Maximum Ride series so much) So I got this book (and it's sequel) from the library. Ugh. Wow. Um. *clears throat* I got a shocker. The swearing was just HORRENDOUS! Every chapter had at least 3 bad words in there. Some large; some small, but mostly large. Basically the only thing the kids ever did was steal, trespass, runaway from their parents, etc. etc. Their excuse? "It was for a good cause." Please, give me a break. The only lesson a kid is going to learn from this book is that it's O.K. to break the law, runaway from your parents, and ignore your punishments. The poor parents of these kids tried to punish them but at the end of the book every kid got off scot-free. No juvenile detention, no grounding, nothing. So in the end their biggest punishment was having their DNA changed. Did they learn from this? Nope. They just used their new powers to break more laws! Kids today....
  Not a lot of this book was realistic at all. (ignore the parts about DNA changing for now) Four kids escaped from a building unharmed surrounded by police. (a building they broke into, btw) They tracked down a dead and buried body that some of the smartest people tried to find and failed, but they found it at just the right time. (convenient, huh?) They broke into a top secured building and escaped uncaught and unnoticed.
And this fourteen-year-olds best friends are guys but she has no romantic interest in any of them?? (is she gay or something?)
That's not all, but I'm going to quit blabbing just because my finger's are sore from typing this out....