Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A Eugene, Oregon, teen’s dream spot at a prestigious San Francisco research organization turns into a nightmare. Ambitious, driven Aarya has worked hard for years—and being accepted into the Elizabethan Institute’s yearlong high school intensive feels like the gateway to a career in biology. But from her arrival, something feels off. The city is buzzing with stories of mutated wildlife and trees blooming off-season, rumored to be connected to the Institute’s mysterious work. Surrounded by cutthroat peers, Aarya expects academic pressure but not an anonymous note reading, “You sense it already, all that is wrong. /Get out.” When she meets Sofia Castillo, who claims to be the subject of secret experiments, Aarya’s curiosity pulls her into an investigation that grows deadly as her memory fails and a classmate is murdered. The narrative folds scientific authenticity into a gothic ambience, creating a fog-shrouded pressure cooker where academic ambition collides with moral catastrophes. Technical details ground the increasingly surreal mystery without sacrificing accessibility. Hati’s examination of institutional corruption and exploitation resonates powerfully. Aarya makes a compelling protagonist: brilliant, driven, and refreshingly nerdy, navigating both scientific challenges and a chronic respiratory condition with determination. Sofia’s role adds chilling depth, while teammates Jaden Abrahms and Tassinee Yang anchor Aarya through her spiraling paranoia. When the pieces snap together, the revelations land with devastating force. Aarya’s given name suggests South Asian heritage; her surname isn’t provided, and any cultural markers are ambiguous. Cerebral, atmospheric, and genuinely unsettling—science thriller gold.(Thriller. 14-18) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Teenager Aarya has accepted an invitation to attend classes at the Institute, a prestigious research institution that studies the life sciences. Immediately feeling out of place as the scholarship student among her wealthy classmates, Aarya knows she will have to work that much harder to gain a position at the Institute after graduation. As she begins her studies, it is clear that all is not right with the Institute. Mutated animals are found throughout the city, and a mysterious Institute project may be to blame. When Aarya finds threatening notes telling her to get out to survive, she must discover, with the help of her research team, what is happening before it is too late. Readers are constantly thrown off-kilter as Aarya experiences memory lapses and the science experiments grow more grotesque. Hati’s academic thriller is full of twists and lightly laced with romance to form a compelling tale that will have readers on the edge of their seats. Sci-fi fans and mystery readers alike will be drawn into Aarya's unsettling story.

Publishers Weekly
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A scholarship student uncovers a conspiracy while working at an elite microbiology research laboratory in this uneven yet intriguing YA debut by Hati (And the Sky Bled). Seventeen-year-old Aarya—who describes herself as “the saddest teenager, obsessed with microbes and genetics instead of... ‘fun’ ”—is thrilled to join the Elizabethan Institute’s yearlong intensive program, which offers six high schoolers a shot at receiving a life-changing grand prize: industry connections and a job doing cutting-edge research. But rumors of mutated animals appearing both on and off the San Francisco campus suggest to Aarya that the institute’s lab experiments have taken a sinister turn. Her suspicions are soon confirmed when she begins receiving threatening letters, discovers a tree house filled with creepy messages hidden in children’s drawings, and encounters a mysterious girl with an ultrarare autoimmune disease, who claims to be the lab’s unwitting test subject. As Aarya reluctantly recruits her research partners’ help in unraveling their employers’ secrets, she’s plagued by unsettling memory gaps and flare-ups of personal health issues that could link her own murky past to the institute. Though an abrupt conclusion leaves many questions unanswered, smart twists propel this slow-building and provocative mystery. Characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 14–up. Agent: Allegra Martschenko, BookEnds Literary. (Apr.)