Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
What an intriguing book, what a wonderful premise!
The quote on the cover, "How far would you go to save someone you love?" says it all.
This book is so thought provoking, so beautifully written it sometimes feels like poetry.
I find it so very interesting that the book ends, with a nicely wrapped up finality, and yet the author wrote two more books after it, making it a trilogy. Curiosity, as well as a respect for this new-to-me author, both compel me to read on. And so I shall ;).
The quote on the cover, "How far would you go to save someone you love?" says it all.
This book is so thought provoking, so beautifully written it sometimes feels like poetry.
I find it so very interesting that the book ends, with a nicely wrapped up finality, and yet the author wrote two more books after it, making it a trilogy. Curiosity, as well as a respect for this new-to-me author, both compel me to read on. And so I shall ;).
4.5 stars. I hadn't heard anything about this book, just needed one and this was available for immediate download from the library. I did skim the blub and some reviews ... unfortunately the reviews did give away some spoilers that I really wish I hadn't known coming into the story. It would have been more interesting to figure things out as Jenna did.
I really liked the writing and presentation. I normally dislike first person present tense, but it worked well here. There weren't really "chapters" like most books ... there were headings, and different background pages for some reflective thoughts.
Overall, a very interesting story. Though provoking on many levels. I had noticed it being part of a trilogy, so I was a little surprised when the book wrapped everything up as much as it did, with an absolute conclusion. I will look into the other books though, and would definitely recommend this :)
I've seen two covers, butterfly and puzzle pieces, and I like them both!
I really liked the writing and presentation. I normally dislike first person present tense, but it worked well here. There weren't really "chapters" like most books ... there were headings, and different background pages for some reflective thoughts.
Overall, a very interesting story. Though provoking on many levels. I had noticed it being part of a trilogy, so I was a little surprised when the book wrapped everything up as much as it did, with an absolute conclusion. I will look into the other books though, and would definitely recommend this :)
I've seen two covers, butterfly and puzzle pieces, and I like them both!
I read this over four years ago, and it has stuck in my memory. I'm doing some re"reading" ... going with audiobook editions the second time around. I don't think I've heard this narrator (Jenna Lamia) before, but she was pretty perfect for this, at least for Jenna (there were a couple voices I didn't care for, but her voice for Alice was quite unique, with just the slightest lisp). Very young sounding, very natural sounding, like it really was Jenna telling the story. Even though I remembered the storyline quite well, I enjoyed this second go-round just as much.
Jenna Fox is seventeen and she's been in a coma for over a year. When she wakes up her memory patchy and sparse. At first, she remembers nothing of her former life, nothing about herself or the people who call themselves her family. Slowly, however, she begins to remember and to piece together the accident that so dramatically changed everything about her life.
I don't normally read science fiction, YA or otherwise. Despite that, I really enjoyed this book. Jenna's voice is distinct and clear, the description is beautiful and precise and the characters well crafted. Sometimes the characters feel a bit contrived but overall this is a really good book. It's impossible to discuss the book without giving away spoilers so the full discussion is hidden below.
SPOILERS BELOW
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
I was convinced this was going to turn out to be a book about cloning. Pearson surprised me, however, and the central question of the novel, what constitutes humanity and what defines our souls was well crafted.
I only have a few quibbles with the book overall. Some of the characters, like Dane, seem too obviously created only to prove a point and contrast with Jenna. On the one hand we have Jenna - artificially created and with only 10% of her original brain. On the other Dane - 100% human and yet a sociopath and therefore presumably soulless. There's Alice who has lost limbs and zealously joins the science watch dog group. There is Jenna's grandmother who is trying to bring back original species of plant life. These characters feel as though they were picked deliberately to prove a point and not as a natural out growth of the story. That was a bit clumsy and at odds with the otherwise excellent writing.
The time issue at the end is weird. Jenna has lived 260 years? Seventy of them spent with her husband? And yet she has a young daughter now? I get that the girl was genetically engineered but that would mean that Jenna waited over 150 years after her husband's death to have the child. Bit odd and it doesn't fit with the rest of her narrative. The timing in the end section seems very off.
I was unhappy with the fact that Alice is re-engineered. Alice was adamantly against that and yet in the end she's okay with it? She betrays all of her beliefs and views in that case. I feel as though Pearson was saying something earlier in the book about being true to yourself and not living for others and yet in the end Jenna is still basically living for her parents while they're alive. They never let her go. The most she does is destroy her back-up and set her friends free. She doesn't preserve the sanctity of life and choice - she allows Alice's parents to "save" Alice despite the fact she knows that is not what Alice would want. In the end I feel as though Pearson's central message got muddled and abandoned along the way. If she had kept the message consistent and followed that theme rather than back tracking and have characters act contrary to their nature I'd have been inclined to give this five stars.
Still it's a good, quick read and will definitely get you thinking.
I don't normally read science fiction, YA or otherwise. Despite that, I really enjoyed this book. Jenna's voice is distinct and clear, the description is beautiful and precise and the characters well crafted. Sometimes the characters feel a bit contrived but overall this is a really good book. It's impossible to discuss the book without giving away spoilers so the full discussion is hidden below.
SPOILERS BELOW
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
I was convinced this was going to turn out to be a book about cloning. Pearson surprised me, however, and the central question of the novel, what constitutes humanity and what defines our souls was well crafted.
I only have a few quibbles with the book overall. Some of the characters, like Dane, seem too obviously created only to prove a point and contrast with Jenna. On the one hand we have Jenna - artificially created and with only 10% of her original brain. On the other Dane - 100% human and yet a sociopath and therefore presumably soulless. There's Alice who has lost limbs and zealously joins the science watch dog group. There is Jenna's grandmother who is trying to bring back original species of plant life. These characters feel as though they were picked deliberately to prove a point and not as a natural out growth of the story. That was a bit clumsy and at odds with the otherwise excellent writing.
The time issue at the end is weird. Jenna has lived 260 years? Seventy of them spent with her husband? And yet she has a young daughter now? I get that the girl was genetically engineered but that would mean that Jenna waited over 150 years after her husband's death to have the child. Bit odd and it doesn't fit with the rest of her narrative. The timing in the end section seems very off.
I was unhappy with the fact that Alice is re-engineered. Alice was adamantly against that and yet in the end she's okay with it? She betrays all of her beliefs and views in that case. I feel as though Pearson was saying something earlier in the book about being true to yourself and not living for others and yet in the end Jenna is still basically living for her parents while they're alive. They never let her go. The most she does is destroy her back-up and set her friends free. She doesn't preserve the sanctity of life and choice - she allows Alice's parents to "save" Alice despite the fact she knows that is not what Alice would want. In the end I feel as though Pearson's central message got muddled and abandoned along the way. If she had kept the message consistent and followed that theme rather than back tracking and have characters act contrary to their nature I'd have been inclined to give this five stars.
Still it's a good, quick read and will definitely get you thinking.
I really enjoyed this book alot more than I expected to. I'm not a huge sci/fi fan, and some may argue that it's not really sci/fi, but it had a lot of the markers: set in the future, big technological advances, cyborgs... But I don't want to spoil it for you. If you want a book that has a sympathetic main character that also keeps you guessing as to exactly what's happened to her, also with an immensely satisfying ending, then read this book!
I'm not sure what I was expecting when I first picked this up from the library, and to be honest the only thing I remembered was that I wanted to read it. I'm not sure how to describe what genre this would fit into. I guess it can be considered a dystopian. It revolves around the ethics of bio-genetics.
It questions how far a parent is willing to go for a child and how far a child is willing to go for a parent. Also, what does it mean to be human, or to exist? Very thought provoking and intriguing. It makes me want to figure those questions out for myself.
I admire Jenna's courage, even if she isn't sure if she has it or not. I believe she does.
I liked that the story was told through Jenna's perspective and not through a narrator. More is added to the experience of reading when it is told through the main character's eyes. Everything Jenna was feeling and reacting to could be felt/heard/understood.
I enjoyed this book and even though there was a great ending, I am curious to read the next book. This tied off Jenna's life pretty well and I am eager to engage Locke and Kara in the next novel.
It questions how far a parent is willing to go for a child and how far a child is willing to go for a parent. Also, what does it mean to be human, or to exist? Very thought provoking and intriguing. It makes me want to figure those questions out for myself.
I admire Jenna's courage, even if she isn't sure if she has it or not. I believe she does.
I liked that the story was told through Jenna's perspective and not through a narrator. More is added to the experience of reading when it is told through the main character's eyes. Everything Jenna was feeling and reacting to could be felt/heard/understood.
I enjoyed this book and even though there was a great ending, I am curious to read the next book. This tied off Jenna's life pretty well and I am eager to engage Locke and Kara in the next novel.
So unexpected and captivating. This book'll blow you away with its twists and turns. Totally not what I was expecting, but I still really enjoyed it. Angsty teen meets sci-fi/futuristic/coming of age.
This was a great, quick read. Fast paced story that unfolds to a startling conclusion. "What would you do to save your child's life?" is a guiding question for readers. Highly recommended for reluctant readers and for anyone wanting a weekend read.
Technically a young adult novel but a book so good I read it in one sitting. If you like books that touch on debates about humanity, science fiction, or just a good story you will probably enjoy this book. It's a decently easy read as well.
Interesting. The adoration of Jenna Fox is many things. It is:
* a young adult speculative fiction novel for girls who don't like science fiction
# a coming-of-age novel for people who eschew the touchy-feely (me!)
# a medical thriller, fully as suspenseful as early Robin Cook
# a meditation on choices nearly as profound as Walden, which it frequently quotes
And I think it is, very subtly, a pro-life statement.
Now, I, like the reviewers at SLJ, Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, etc., and my colleague Other Paula, who recommended it to me, enjoyed this book. I liked Jenna, who has awoken from a coma with no memory, and who struggles to assimilate information that will help her interpret her world and make sense of her often conflicting impressions. I enjoyed watching her evaluate her former life, explore her new life, and forge a new identity from the best pieces of both. The near-future world that Pearson has invented, full of genetically engineered species and antibiotic-resistant bacteria and oxygenated transplant gel loaded with neurochips, is both believable and intriguing. And I thought that "waking from a coma" was a serviceable metaphor for teenagers just beginning to realize that they are not merely extensions of (or reactions against) their parents, and that they can choose what kind of person to be.
But although this book is a suspenseful, thrilling read, I went through it slowly, because there's a lot going on in it beyond the mystery of Jenna's past. Specifically, the frequent ethics discussions merit very close attention.
In Jenna's world, "Science" (it almost wears a capital S in this book) is responsible for the disappearance of native species and an epidemic that killed a quarter of the world's population. In response, the federal government has enacted laws and created an ethics board that controls access to and application of advanced medical treatments. To ensure equitable access, a point system is in place, under which every person is assigned 100 points. Medical procedures use up those points: physicians decide whether a person 'needs', say, biofeedback software for their prosthetic limbs, or a kidney, or a heart transplant, based on how many points they have left.
Jenna is the daughter of a biotechnology billionaire, and she has recovered from a truly devastating car accident. I don't think I'm giving away too much of the plot when I say that Jenna has exceeded her points.
This fact, along with various revelations pertaining to what was lost and what recovered from Jenna's body after the crash, as well as a quadruple amputee whom she meets at school, and the fate of her best friends from before the accident, leads Jenna to question her right - and desire - to be alive.
I was skating right along with Jenna, feeling her dilemmas, rejoicing in her rebellions, all the way up to the book's ending, an artificial-feeling happy coda set two hundred and forty years later. 240 years is a long time: long enough, presumably, for a character to gain complete perspective. And 240 years later, Jenna is content with her choices, and the world's society backs her up. She muses on faith and science, and thinks that they are two sides of the same coin. At this point, I thought to myself, "'Faith'? Was this book about faith?" Earlier in the book, Jenna wondered if she had a soul, and her grandmother is Catholic... and then I realized that Jenna's post-coma memories include events that happened before she could talk: a near-drowning as a toddler, her baptism, and... being in her mother's womb. This representation of a fetus's perceptions and feelings is extremely provocative and, amid Pearson's well-written examinations of the meaning and value of human life, I think it's unnecessary. It made me go back and re-examine all of the science and ethics in the book.
I feel sure that Mary Pearson did not write The Adoration of Jenna Fox as Christian or pro-life propaganda (although, if that title isn't Jesus-y enough for you, I'll write the sequel, and call it Ecce Jenna).
Until that ending, I would even say that her presentation of the ethical issues faced by the characters is basically balanced - though that point system thing rather reeks of pro-life rhetoric. If the book had been left open-ended, I would recommend it without reservation. It could be used in many terrific science-class discussion topics (some of which are listed in the discussion guide, some, not). Teen literature should challenge convictions, should poke holes in the status quo.
But resolving Jenna's ethical conflicts - presenting her choice as the one right choice - damages the credibility of the book. Sure, "it's just fiction," but I'd like to give this book more credit than that. You quote Walden that much, you kind of better be prepared to defend your choices.
This review originally published on Pink Me: http://pinkme.typepad.com
* a young adult speculative fiction novel for girls who don't like science fiction
# a coming-of-age novel for people who eschew the touchy-feely (me!)
# a medical thriller, fully as suspenseful as early Robin Cook
# a meditation on choices nearly as profound as Walden, which it frequently quotes
And I think it is, very subtly, a pro-life statement.
Now, I, like the reviewers at SLJ, Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, etc., and my colleague Other Paula, who recommended it to me, enjoyed this book. I liked Jenna, who has awoken from a coma with no memory, and who struggles to assimilate information that will help her interpret her world and make sense of her often conflicting impressions. I enjoyed watching her evaluate her former life, explore her new life, and forge a new identity from the best pieces of both. The near-future world that Pearson has invented, full of genetically engineered species and antibiotic-resistant bacteria and oxygenated transplant gel loaded with neurochips, is both believable and intriguing. And I thought that "waking from a coma" was a serviceable metaphor for teenagers just beginning to realize that they are not merely extensions of (or reactions against) their parents, and that they can choose what kind of person to be.
But although this book is a suspenseful, thrilling read, I went through it slowly, because there's a lot going on in it beyond the mystery of Jenna's past. Specifically, the frequent ethics discussions merit very close attention.
In Jenna's world, "Science" (it almost wears a capital S in this book) is responsible for the disappearance of native species and an epidemic that killed a quarter of the world's population. In response, the federal government has enacted laws and created an ethics board that controls access to and application of advanced medical treatments. To ensure equitable access, a point system is in place, under which every person is assigned 100 points. Medical procedures use up those points: physicians decide whether a person 'needs', say, biofeedback software for their prosthetic limbs, or a kidney, or a heart transplant, based on how many points they have left.
Jenna is the daughter of a biotechnology billionaire, and she has recovered from a truly devastating car accident. I don't think I'm giving away too much of the plot when I say that Jenna has exceeded her points.
This fact, along with various revelations pertaining to what was lost and what recovered from Jenna's body after the crash, as well as a quadruple amputee whom she meets at school, and the fate of her best friends from before the accident, leads Jenna to question her right - and desire - to be alive.
I was skating right along with Jenna, feeling her dilemmas, rejoicing in her rebellions, all the way up to the book's ending, an artificial-feeling happy coda set two hundred and forty years later. 240 years is a long time: long enough, presumably, for a character to gain complete perspective. And 240 years later, Jenna is content with her choices, and the world's society backs her up. She muses on faith and science, and thinks that they are two sides of the same coin. At this point, I thought to myself, "'Faith'? Was this book about faith?" Earlier in the book, Jenna wondered if she had a soul, and her grandmother is Catholic... and then I realized that Jenna's post-coma memories include events that happened before she could talk: a near-drowning as a toddler, her baptism, and... being in her mother's womb. This representation of a fetus's perceptions and feelings is extremely provocative and, amid Pearson's well-written examinations of the meaning and value of human life, I think it's unnecessary. It made me go back and re-examine all of the science and ethics in the book.
I feel sure that Mary Pearson did not write The Adoration of Jenna Fox as Christian or pro-life propaganda (although, if that title isn't Jesus-y enough for you, I'll write the sequel, and call it Ecce Jenna).
Until that ending, I would even say that her presentation of the ethical issues faced by the characters is basically balanced - though that point system thing rather reeks of pro-life rhetoric. If the book had been left open-ended, I would recommend it without reservation. It could be used in many terrific science-class discussion topics (some of which are listed in the discussion guide, some, not). Teen literature should challenge convictions, should poke holes in the status quo.
But resolving Jenna's ethical conflicts - presenting her choice as the one right choice - damages the credibility of the book. Sure, "it's just fiction," but I'd like to give this book more credit than that. You quote Walden that much, you kind of better be prepared to defend your choices.
This review originally published on Pink Me: http://pinkme.typepad.com