brendaoliva 's review for:

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

4.0

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The Adoration of Jenna Fox was a very unique story and I daresay I enjoyed every page of it. The story is set in the future, although it’s not entirely clear how far into the future, but a future where medicine and science have evolved.

Jenna Fox has just awakened from an eighteenth month coma that she suffered after an accident nearly claimed her life. Jenna has no memories of her past. She does not remember who she was, her parents, friends and she even has a hard time remembering the meaning is simple words. As she begins to learn things about herself she begins to realize that her parents are hiding something from her and she begins to question the world around her, including her humanity. As she digs deeper into her mind for memories or answers she begins to uncover the lies her parents have told her and the secrets that surround her recovery from the accident. The things she uncovers threaten her parents, the lives of the people involved, and her own freedom.

This was a very unique story. I honestly had hoped for a better ending. The ending itself wasn’t bad but considering that there are two follow up books I was hoping for a bit of a cliff hanger.

Spoiler

I was surprised to see that Allys’s parents went to Jenna’s parents for help when their daughter was dying. Allys was completely against what Jenna’s dad had done and had plead her parents to report them but at that point in the book the reader gets to see that no matter how unethical Allys’s parents might have thought the procedure was, they would do anything to save their daughter as Jenna’s parents had once done. I honestly thought that they would report them to the government and I thought that the second book would be the story of what happened after they were turned into the authorities. I also thought that Simmons, the man who took a picture of Jenna, was a reporter and that the story of Jenna’s survival would explode all over the news. Maybe I’ve read too many fiction/adventure books but all those little things could have led to really exiting sequel.

One thing that really bothered me was the fact that the author never truly explained what was wrong with Dane. It was never explained who broke into Mr. Bender’s house. Granted, as the reader you were lead to believe that it might have been Dane, but it was never explained why he did it, or if he really did it. I’m a strong believer that if a certain event doesn’t contribute to the story then it shouldn’t be included. Mr. Bender’s garage getting vandalized contributed nothing to the story. I know that this was when Jenna saw her father’s car and she placed the pieces together, but she had enough interaction with Mr. Bender for her to have pieced things together without the break-in scene. I was also bothered with the epilogue.

Spoiler

Two hundred and sixty years later?! I wish I had known what happened after people found out about Jenna and I wish I had known how Allys took the news of her parents breaking the law for her. I really liked the story and it was heading in a really good directions but then the photographer turned out to be part of Jenna’s security, Allys’s parents decided not to report them to the authorities, the author never explained what was wrong with Dane nor why he was even relevant to the story, and we never got read what happened with Locke and Kara’s parents or the possible criminal action against Jenna as a result of the accident…

If things had gone differently I might have loved this book, now I all I can say is that it was good not excellent. Am I in a hurry to read the sequels? No.