The most dangerous person in the 24th century is a 15-year-old girl named Raven --- and officially she doesn't even exist. Why? Raven is a Hex --- part human, part super computer. In the late 21st century, Hexes were created by genetically enhancing human children. Hexes can reach into the Net and access information systems from around the world. They can move around the World Wide Web the way other teenagers stroll around a mall. Raven has awesome powers --- she can control computers with her thoughts. Raven is in hiding, though, and she would like to keep it that way. If the secret government finds out that she is alive, she will be killed.
  
Children with the Hex gene must either fight for their lives, hide away, or be exterminated. The government doesn't want its people to know that Hexes exist. The CPS, a secret government agency, is on a mission to seek and destroy all Hexes. Most die no matter what they do. Raven's sister, Rachel, is already presumed dead, even though she had never shown any sign of being a Hex. While searching the Internet for some sign of Rachel's existence, Raven runs across another fate that Hexes face. A fate worse than death. It is this discovery that will eventually lead Raven, along with her foxy non-Hex brother Wraith, to the place where Hexes die.
      
HEX is book one of what promises to be an outstanding series by Rhiannon Lassiter. Lassiter does a great job of making the people in her books as real as possible. Even the minor characters have great personalities.  
      
There is a reference to a New York disaster and some talk about terrorism, which takes some of the fun out of this book. This is minor, though, and doesn't take away from the fact that HEX is a book that you are cursed to enjoy.

   --- Reviewed by Kat, recent high school grad and young adult fiction diva


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