Reviews

The Adoration Of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

eesh25's review against another edition

3.0

The Adoration of Jenna Fox is about a girl, Jenna Fox, who has just woken up from a coma of a year and a half after being in an accident, and doesn't have her memory. She lives with her parents and her grandmother, Lily. She's struggling to find herself and feels that something just isn't right with her.

There's a mystery element surrounding the novel, and I found that, and the premise of the book, to be very interesting. But it doesn't live up to the intrigue that the description promises.

The mystery is three-part. The first part of it I mostly guessed, the second part, surrounding the accident, was relatively minor (to me) and I didn't really care about it. The third part simply didn't make sense to me. I'm sure it was supposed to be a big deal, but I couldn't get past that fact that it was not at all believable. It either needed to be something else or needed a better explanation because it was a significant aspect of the novel. Basically, the mystery was not accomplished well.

The writing was okay at first, but it became tedious. It was quite dull to begin with and then having to put up with Jenna's internal angst-philosophy monologues got exhausting.

The book was quite uneventful. It kinda feels like nothing happened, or nothing that really mattered, anyway. I was surprised that a dystopian, standalone this short still managed to be boring, but I shouldn't have been. Mary E. Pearson is very good at ultra-slow pacing; if anyone could do it, she could. Though I expected more from her when it came to the romance, which in this case was forced, hurried and didn't even need to be there.

But while the story isn't exciting, it isn't all bad either. It's just smaller and more personal. There's no big villain to defeat, just a girl dealing with a peculiar identity crisis. I have to give props to Pearson for attempting that.

The real saving grace of the novel, though, was Lily. She was a character that I liked. She was bold and strong and I also liked her relationship with Jenna. It was nice to see their interactions and how their relationship developed. That was easily the best part of the book and the thing that kept me reading. The three stars are for Lily.

Overall, the concept was interesting but the book itself was not. I wouldn't recommend it. And after reading the synopsis of the second book and finding out that it's based on the part I found to be unrealistic, I doubt I'll be continuing with the series.

a1ice_booklover's review against another edition

hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I didn't like this book very much at all. I read it for a book club so I had to finish it, but it wasn't very good. I felt like the characters weren't very well developed. And to me and my other book club members, we felt like the author was trolling us or something. On page 212, Jenna said, "I'm not like other girls." which was so goofy that we decided to quote it in our presentation on the book. Also, it felt like the author had a list iof a ton of things she wanted to happen in one book, and so she stuffed them all in and it was so random I could never tell what was going to happen, and NOT in a good way. For an example

in the ending when Allys parents came to tell them that Allys was dying, it felt so random. Especially after something kind of big had just happened. And then all of a sudden two hundred and sixty years later everything is so happy. It felt like the rest of the book was just ignored and the author gave up.

The book was supposed to be dystopian but there weren't very many dystopian parts of it. Jenna is a pick-me, and it's annoying, maybe that was the goal or something but it just wasn't for me. 

jbridges99's review against another edition

4.0

I enjoyed this book. I had bought this for my son from his HS summer reading list. He never read it and so when cleaning out his closet and finding it, I decided to read it. It was a little predictable in that I could figure out what was going to happen before it did but it was well written and kept my attention.

lebenamlimit's review against another edition

informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

cutenanya's review against another edition

3.0

To sum up this story in one sentence : the ending conflicts the whole story!

sabrinau's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

4.5

harleyrae's review against another edition

4.0

I found this to be a very interesting read. The Adoration of Jenna Fox follows a girl who was in an accident putting her into a coma for a year. When she finally wakes she has no memory of anything other than random facts, such as everything there is to know about the French Revolution. But as she begins to figure out who she is, not everything seems as it should be, forcing Jenna to figure out what really happened to Jenna Fox.

I really enjoyed this book. It was an fast-paced, entertaining read. While it got a bit slow at times, the book still left you wanting to know what was gonna happen next. The only thing I didn't really like was the format of the book. The chapters were set up strange, and each chapter followed a different topic, luckily though all the topics connected really nicely.

All in all I really enjoyed this book. Currently I do t plan on reading the remaking books in the series, since I feel that this book works pretty well as a standalone.

booagnes's review against another edition

4.0

I enjoyed this book immensely. It really makes you think... kind of FORCES you to think about ethics and where our world is headed. A great read that I highly recommend.

goodem9199's review against another edition

3.0

eh. bit too sci-fi for me.

annettebooksofhopeanddreams's review against another edition

4.0

I don't know what came over me today. While reading the last book I really wanted to finish this week I noticed I had quite a few hours of time left. So, all of a sudden I decided that I wanted to read an extra paperback. However, the font of the book couldn't be too small and the amount of pages couldn't be too high. Not an easy task. I eventually did stumble upon this book though and it was surprisingly enough perfect!

This is sci-fi as I want my sci-fi to be. In this case we're not traveling to another world. We're simply traveling to a possible future of this world. We currently see how fast science develops cures and medicines and we can only imagine where this would end. Which is where this book comes in. How far can we go to save the people we love? What can we replace in a human's body and mind before they're no longer human?

In a way this book is very thought provoking. It's dealing with the questions above, but it's also forcing you to think about identity, humanity and science in general. At the moment those questions seem easy to answer but there will come a moment where we might no longer be so sure about our answers. And I can imagine that this development, and especially how fast we get there, is both exciting and scary.

However, even though the focus is on the science, the heart of the book is very human and realistic. In a way we also simply see a human girl, waking up after a coma without any memories. Slowly she's rediscovering who she is, but also who she wants to be and can be. We understand her anger and her fear and her sadness. We see her struggling with what her parents have done and what that means for her and her future. And I really started caring about her.

I can't wait to read the sequel!