Exile
Escape Grid City in the action-packed fourth book in the Lost Clone YA dystopian science fiction series. This fast-paced adventure is perfect for fans of Uglies, Divergent, and Orphan Black!
After their dramatic escape from Grid City, Jane and her friends flee to United West, desperate to reach their last batchmate before she’s decommissioned.
With the agency hot on their heels, their mission won’t be easy. But help arrives from an unexpected source.
Their new contact whisks them away to a remote outpost in the high desert, where an old agency adversary harbors valuable secrets. Meanwhile, Henry Ironside's implant scheme is gaining steam, endangering clones everywhere. Jane must rally her batchmates and dubious allies to counter both threats, a more complicated task than she ever could have imagined.
But the cost of success might be higher than she can pay.
-Goodreads
Title: Exile
Series: The Lost Clone #4
Author: Jordan Rivet
Page Count: 344
Genre: Science Fiction / Young Adult
Rating: 4.25/5.0
Date Read: March 2nd, 2025
Opening
I started reading The Lost Clone series by Jordan Rivet with book one Replacement thanks to the SPSFC-3 competition. It was such a fun easy read, I knew I'd be looking to continue when my TBR began to free up a bit. That was near the end of 2023 and then last year I read both books two (Batchmate) and three (Insider). I continue to enjoy the series. I was looking to fill a prompt for a readathon here in 2025 and book four Exile fit quite nicely.
This also allowed me to get fully caught up with this series, at least for the moment.
Pacing
The pacing of this series up to and including Exile has simply been a breath of fresh air for me. I've utilized the audiobooks narrated by Talon David for each of the first four books now. She gives an excellent performance for each one. The story is very easy to follow along and though I personally categorize this as a bit of a Young Adult series I don't know if that is intended or simply because the majority of the characters are younger and how easy of a read it is.
I'm not knocking this at all by saying that. These books have filled a void quite nicely when I needed a break from epic reads that would take me weeks to get through. I also really enjoy the mystery thriller side of The Lost Clone series. It definitely gets me guessing and waiting to see if those guesses end up correct or not by the end.
World Building
The world building is an interesting futuristic society that even though there is plenty of technology, this world still has very similar issues we see in our own modern society. The tech offers plenty of interesting science and gadgets to keep fans of the science fiction genre happy. Both the author and the narrator do an amazing job bring this world to life for my enjoyment.
Exile even goes as far as getting us out of the region we've spent most if not all of the story to this point. We get to experience entirely new geographical locations which is always a bonus. It's one thing to talk about those other areas of a world in a story but it means so much more when we finally get to those areas!
Character Development
The character development was really good in Exile. We continue to see some serious growth from our Protagonist Jane but also some significant changes with other returning characters such as Dean. There is also a few new characters as there have been with each of the previous sequels. I mean the series is titled The Lost Clone so it kind of goes without saying there are clones in this story. The various Jane clones have all be very different from one another both in personality and their life goals. Some mesh well and others not so much.
If you've made it this far in the series are probably also aware the Jane clones are the only ones in this society. There are several different lines out there. There is a couple of really intriguing new characters and some we've either heard mentioned several times or just had a hint of that finally arrive in the fourth book.
Closing
At this point in the series, Jordan Rivet would have to take it in a drastically different direction for me not to remain on board for the long haul. I'm invested and really enjoying The Lost Clone series. It might not be my usual type of read but that's ok. It's good to venture out, try some new things and see if they work for you or not.
I would recommend this to readers of science fiction that like a tech heavy world on the surface but perhaps not getting over detailed on how said tech works. It just provides a nice backdrop for what I'd consider a Young Adult Mystery Thriller story.
Scoring
Pacing 5.0 / 5.0
Worldbuilding 4.0 / 5.0
Character Development 4.0 / 5.0
