The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

The Adoration of Jenna Fox is the story of a young girl who is recovering from a terrible accident. It is told from her perspective.

It takes place in the future and concerns such things as medicine and bioethics. The plot is very ambitions and compelling yet it lacks a degree of depth to keep one completely interested.

As the story unfolds you can pretty much figure out what is about to transpire. Overall this book was just "ok". I would recommend checking it out of the library of borrowing it from a friend, as it isn't a book one would reread.


Grade: B-

Synopsis

Sometime in the near future, Jenna Fox, 17, awakens from an 18-month-long coma following a devastating accident, her memory nearly blank. She attempts reorientation by watching videos of her childhood, "recorded beyond reason" by worshipful parents, but mysteries proliferate. Jenna can recite passages from Thoreau yet can't remember having any friends. As memories return, however, Jenna starts picking at the explanation her parents have spun until it unravels. Pearson (A Room on Lorelei Street ) uses each revelation to steadily build tension until the true horror comes into focus. Even then Pearson does not stop; she raises the ante in unexpected ways until the very last page. Clues are supplied by the supporting cast: Jenna's father, who made his fortune in biotechnology; a classmate whose loss of limbs has turned her into a crusader for medical ethics; Jenna's Catholic grandmother, who is hostile to her. A few lapses in logic- if Jenna's father is world-famous and the family in hiding, why does she enroll in school under her real name?-can be forgiven in favor of expert plotting and the complex questions raised about ethics and the nature of the soul. Ages 14-up. (Apr.)

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