Title: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Genre: YA light sci-fi
Read: Mid Oct 2010
Summary: Liked it a lot.
I’ve been disappointed by a lot of the contemporary Young Adult novels I’ve been reading and this was a pleasant surprise. Told in first person present tense this is the story of a girl who awakes from a mysterious accident with almost no memory. She doesn’t know what to make of what her “parents” tell her and the videos and images of a life she doesn’t remember. It’s very light Science Fiction, set in a near future with very little prose-time spent on explanation of tech stuff — which is fine. It’s just very well written and the point of view engaging. The characters feel real, and you invest some emotion in them. At a certain core level this is all it takes. For many young readers the concepts of deconstructed identity might be novel — for me as a sci-fi reader who likes that theme this book wasn’t really about the plot. But there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just a good book and an easy read. I liked the voice and found it pleasantly free of forced attitude.
All Things Andy Gavin 
[…] syndrome which YA books often suffer from. I’ve mentioned this before (like HERE or HERE), but basically this is where after the big shocker no one really seems to act with appropriate […]
[…] in the last year alone and this one had the best voice. It’s fairly well tied with Mary E. Pearson in that regard for recent entries (Judy Blume still wins for lifetime achievement). It’s […]