Review of The Remedy by Suzanne Young

Advance Review of Suzanne Young's The Remedy

Release Date: April 21st, 2015

Synopsis as found on Amazon.com:

Can one girl take on so many identities without losing her own? Find out in this riveting companion to The Program and the New York Times bestselling The Treatment.

In a world before The Program…

Quinlan McKee is a closer. Since the age of seven, Quinn has held the responsibility of providing closure to grieving families with a special skill—she can “become” anyone.

Recommended by grief counselors, Quinn is hired by families to take on the short-term role of a deceased loved one between the ages of fifteen and twenty. She’s not an exact copy, of course, but she wears their clothes and changes her hair, studies them through pictures and videos, and soon, Quinn can act like them, smell like them, and be them for all intents and purposes. But to do her job successfully, she can’t get attached.

Now seventeen, Quinn is deft at recreating herself, sometimes confusing her own past with those of the people she’s portrayed. When she’s given her longest assignment, playing the role of Catalina Barnes, Quinn begins to bond with the deceased girl’s boyfriend. But that’s only the beginning of the complications, especially when Quinn finds out the truth about Catalina’s death. And the epidemic it could start.

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Quinlan McKee has been a closer as long as she can remember. She goes in to the home of a recently deceased girl and for all intents & purposes becomes that girl to help the family get closure. Her father is the head of this program to help the grieving families move forward, but what happens when she can't seem to move forward herself?

Quinn begins to lose herself little by little in every closing she is involved in. She assumes the role of these girls, but she can never quite lose them completely when she is done. She is one of the best at what she does. She can emulate, act, look (with the help of wigs & make-up), and speak like any girl she chooses. After each closing, she gets time off. Time she spends remembering who she is with family and friends, but after the last one, she is rushed back into another... which is supposed to be against the rules.

Catalina Barnes is a closing like she has never experienced. First, there is the death certificate in her file. Quinn doesn't usually get those, but when she does, it never says Undetermined under cause of death. Secondly, closings only consist of family members, but this one includes Catalina's boyfriend. Thirdly, Quinn always gets the girl's diary... but Catalina's is missing a large chunk at the back. Something weird is going on and she is determined to find out.

When Quinn begins to find clues into Catalina's death (missing diary pages with conflicting stories from the family, pages of swirling black pen marks in the boyfriend's car, a friend that happens to be the daughter of the creator of the Closer program), she sets out to find out what is different with this closing... while at the same time, helping this grieving family.

Set in a time before the Program, The Remedy is beautifully written story about a girl who can become any one she chooses, but loses a piece of herself each time she does. I love Suzanne Young's writing style & was very sad when I thought The Treatment was the final book in this series. So I am overjoyed knowing there will be at least one more book after this one.