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A review by ncrabb
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
4.0
There are monsters among us. They are made monstrous by virtue of their differences from us. They believe differently from us; therefore, they are monsters. They live with disabilities you and I can't comprehen; they are monstrously different--arguably almost inhuman by virtue of their differences. Ah, but wait! Do they not have feelings not unlike ours? What if within them lived a spirit saturated with the divine spark of its creator? Where then is the monster?
For 16 years, Eva has grown up in a sheltered almost cloistered environment in England. She has a mark at the back of her neck that she must always hide on those rare times when she is in public. She was created by scientists called "weavers" who create children who serve as backups for other children conventionally born. If one of these conventionally born children dies, the backup child, who has literally spent its lifetime studying every nuance of the conventionally born child's life, can become a living extension of the dead child, thereby assuaging the grief of the parents who have sustained a loss and who have paid the weavers to create this backup child.
Eva didn't name herself until she was 16, and she took the name after an elephant she saw on a magical rare day when one of her minders took her to the zoo. It was technically illegal for her to have any name at all other than the name of the conventionally born girl whose life she had to so carefully study and emulate however possible.
When the conventionally born girl whom Eva has closely observed is killed in an accident, Eva must travel to India to become the living daughter replacement for the one so recently and brutally killed.
But Eva has always struggled under the constraints of her life as an echo. She and her kind are illegal, and there are bounty hunters who would take her life in an instant if her guardians would allow it. Indeed, it is in the presence of these guardians in England where Eva learns to love others and to be loved. To the guardians, she is not an echo. She is a girl with a name and unique personality traits that the weavers don't have the power to obliterate. There is nothing monstrous or alien about her.
Life in India becomes more than a little problematic for Eva. She makes an understandable mistake that brings her fragilely constructed life to the verge of collapse, and now Eva must find the freedom to be Eva, not a lifelong understudy. Indeed, her life depends on it.
This book does a grand job of exploring what humanity means. Mandanna writes well, and she fearlessly explores the ways we all build walls to keep out those who don't see the world as we do. I even found myself cheering for the romantic piece here between Eva and the most youthful of her guardians. It could perhaps have been a bit better developed, but it in no way detracts from the book.
Your heart truly goes out to Eva who never gets to simply live her life as a girl. She is busy constantly viewing videos of her "other." At one point, despite her feelings to the contrary, Eva is forced to get a snake tattoo because her "other," Amara, got one half a world away.
I came away from the book resolved to do better at merely accepting those around me and focus less on differences that create monstrous unnecessary gaps between me and those around me.
For those who follow me here and have concerns about book content, be advised that there is almost no profanity here; and while there's some teenage kiss-and-cuddle, there are no graphic sexual descriptions.
This is a young-adult title that can easily cross age boundaries and remind us all that we are all more alike and less freakish and monstrous than we may think.
For 16 years, Eva has grown up in a sheltered almost cloistered environment in England. She has a mark at the back of her neck that she must always hide on those rare times when she is in public. She was created by scientists called "weavers" who create children who serve as backups for other children conventionally born. If one of these conventionally born children dies, the backup child, who has literally spent its lifetime studying every nuance of the conventionally born child's life, can become a living extension of the dead child, thereby assuaging the grief of the parents who have sustained a loss and who have paid the weavers to create this backup child.
Eva didn't name herself until she was 16, and she took the name after an elephant she saw on a magical rare day when one of her minders took her to the zoo. It was technically illegal for her to have any name at all other than the name of the conventionally born girl whose life she had to so carefully study and emulate however possible.
When the conventionally born girl whom Eva has closely observed is killed in an accident, Eva must travel to India to become the living daughter replacement for the one so recently and brutally killed.
But Eva has always struggled under the constraints of her life as an echo. She and her kind are illegal, and there are bounty hunters who would take her life in an instant if her guardians would allow it. Indeed, it is in the presence of these guardians in England where Eva learns to love others and to be loved. To the guardians, she is not an echo. She is a girl with a name and unique personality traits that the weavers don't have the power to obliterate. There is nothing monstrous or alien about her.
Life in India becomes more than a little problematic for Eva. She makes an understandable mistake that brings her fragilely constructed life to the verge of collapse, and now Eva must find the freedom to be Eva, not a lifelong understudy. Indeed, her life depends on it.
This book does a grand job of exploring what humanity means. Mandanna writes well, and she fearlessly explores the ways we all build walls to keep out those who don't see the world as we do. I even found myself cheering for the romantic piece here between Eva and the most youthful of her guardians. It could perhaps have been a bit better developed, but it in no way detracts from the book.
Your heart truly goes out to Eva who never gets to simply live her life as a girl. She is busy constantly viewing videos of her "other." At one point, despite her feelings to the contrary, Eva is forced to get a snake tattoo because her "other," Amara, got one half a world away.
I came away from the book resolved to do better at merely accepting those around me and focus less on differences that create monstrous unnecessary gaps between me and those around me.
For those who follow me here and have concerns about book content, be advised that there is almost no profanity here; and while there's some teenage kiss-and-cuddle, there are no graphic sexual descriptions.
This is a young-adult title that can easily cross age boundaries and remind us all that we are all more alike and less freakish and monstrous than we may think.