Just like other reviews that I saw here, I am not sure how much I liked or disliked this book. 
 I couldn't put it down, and though this should say that I loved it, it doesn't. 
 First of all I hated their names. I know that in more than 300 hundred years it would be normal for people to change their names, but the names are less like names at all. I mean come on: Eldest/Elder. No. Give them names. I have two theories on that: either the author thought it would be interesting for the leader and the to-be leader to be named Eldest/Elder, but why couldn't have that been just a codename? Why couldn't she give them names? And if you make the names weird, why name someone Luthe, Victrie(was it really that difficult to add an 'o' between the 't' and the 'r'?) and another one Harley or Steela(both seem much more plausible names to me). On the other hand, English is not my mother tongue so maybe I am not supposed to talk about it, but still. It bugs me. I have read some weird names of the "future", but I have never read names that, frankly, disturbed me. 
 Speaking of disturbances. I have many. 
 I know that the author thought we needed the ''rape'' scene to really realize the seriousness of the mating season, but I think that the public sex scenes were enough. Oh, and why did Elder(still flinch cause he is so nameless to me) notice the sex? I thought he grew up looking at those couples doing it. I know Harley and Victrie noticed it too, but they were much more at ease with it. Normal. But no, Elder has to tell us he hears their moaning, cause we don't get the picture. Yeah right. 
 I also read in one of the reviews here about Amy and her Mom. I can totally understand her deeper connection with her father than with her mother, cause it is the same case with me. I fight with my mom a lot, too. But I don't think I would just forget about my mom in that place, and wail at my father for not being there. 
 Oh, and Amy's reaction to the rape. After ten pages of crying, being depressed and afraid to go out in the 'world' again, she just goes back to doing whatever she wants and whenever she wants. Oh, and she's from the USA and I know more about the civil war than she does. The author could have at least made her a bit more smart, or at least, interested in her own goddamn history. 
 The 'romance' didn't even get to me. They have a connection that might one day grow to real love, but the kiss was totally unnecessary. It doesn't need to have romance for it to be a good YA book, which most of the YA authors seem to forget. 
 I don't like how the characters were more gray than black or white. I hated Elder in the end. And I hated how Amy understood. And I hated how he didn't learn from his mistake. Didn't evolve at all. 
 The plot is made to be mysterious, but I saw right through Orion(which is probably the coolest name in the book!) and I knew that Doc was hiding something about him, and I knew there was something wrong with the ship and that they were supposed to arrive by then. 
 The only thing I didn't foresee was the Plague. Or the Plague's nonexistence. You know what I thought? They were killed. Thrown out of the ship. Because of food. Water. Anything. But no. They killed each other because they panicked. Totally un-plausible. At least not to me. Maybe Eldest was crazy, but he was threatening Amy ever single second, and he threw out of the ship the people he didn't need. The erased family trees, far from disturbing, just imply that the people have been killed. By someone. Only no, it was war. Hard to believe. Or may be it's just me thinking that the book would have been better that way. 
 But there were things I liked. I liked how the crazy people were actually the normal ones, and I knew they were being called like that because they were minority, and they were like that because they were needed. I liked how the plants were bigger, but dry, lifeless even, and that the animals have been changed as well. That was something that makes the book wonderful. Because with recycled air and water you can get only so much. I wish Amy noticed that when she first started running. But no, she was disturbed. 
 I wish the protagonists were more real, defined and well, better. Oh, and I wish they evolved. 
 The ending was so disappointing. I don't think you need to end your book on a cliffhanger just to make sure your fans read your next book. If you're not sure about this, check the real fame Harry Potter has, the one behind the movies, the fame the books have. They don't end on cliffhangers. I still re-read them all the time. 
 Elder has so much to learn from an ordinary 11 year old boy. For starters how to be a real leader and a hero at the same time. 
 I have this thing with series: once I read the first, I will read the rest of them. But that doesn't mean that they're my favorites. 
 Three stars for the science of it all. Loved the uranium part(though where does the radiation go?), very plausible and everything, and the DNA thing too, and the cloning, because they do it even today. 
 P.S. What happened to the woman who survived being unplugged?