Double Helix by Nancy Werlin

Eli Samuels lives each day on autopilot. His life hasn’t been the  same since Huntington’s disease claimed his mother, and his father’s denial  wears their already strained relationship paper-thin. The only person who offers  him comfort is his girlfriend, but even she’s asking too many questions about  things that Eli would rather keep to himself. 

Part of being on autopilot is making no plans for the future,  which is fine with Eli because his future is too bleak anyway. Instead of  getting ready for college like the rest of his classmates, Eli seeks employment  with Dr. Quincy Wyatt, a world-famous molecular biologist, who used to be  friends with his mother. The first warning sign for Eli should have been Dr.  Wyatt’s immediate job offer to a high school student with no training. The   second warning sign should have been the unusual interest that Dr. Wyatt had in   playing God.

 For readers who are science-lovers, this will be a fun read  because it goes into bio-ethics, cloning, and many other DNA hot topics. For  people who want a quick-moving plot that is full of suspense, this will not be a  fun read. The plot takes too long to build the background information for the  mystery, and once it does, it uses the same cliffhanger of “How does he know my  mom?”for 200 pages, which gets old very quickly. Also, when the author finally  gets to the climax, she abruptly ends the story; it was  almost like the author got tired of writing in the middle of the climax and  threw in an epilogue. Such a poor ending made me feel cheated and like I  wasted my time investing in this book.