What We Talk About When We Talk About Clone Club by Gregory E. Pence

  I saw the cover of this book and the words "Clone Club" and immediately knew that I had to read What We Talk About When We Talk About Clone Club by Gregory E. Pence. I love the show Orphan Black. It's fun. It's intriguing. It makes me think. What could be better than a book about one of my favorite shows! Thankfully, the book did not disappoint.

For anyone not familiar with the show, it starts with a woman named Sarah Manning who sees a woman jump in front of a train. It's hard to know which is more disturbing: that a woman just committed suicide in front of Sarah, or that the woman looked exactly like her. Sarah soon learns that there are several other women who look exactly like her, excepting personal style in dress and hair and the like. It turns out Sarah is a clone.

I was hooked the moment I saw a preview of the show. I watched it and pretty much just accepted the science fiction aspect of it and didn't think too much about it. Pence's book made me think about the real world possibilities and ethical issues surrounding cloning. While human cloning seems unlikely to become a viable possibility anytime soon, it raises lots of interesting issues about assisted reproduction; expectations of children based on ancestry, culture, family, and other factors; individual and group identity, nature versus nurture, and more.

This book did have more science that I was expecting. As someone who was hopelessly confused by chemistry class, I was a little worried but Pence did a great job of explaining things. I would even say I learned something about genetics. If you're a fan of Orphan Black this is definitely worth the read. It's a quick read. It's thought-proving, and it's a lot of fun.