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Summary
Summary
Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a coma, they tell her, and she is still recovering from a terrible accident in which she was involved a year ago. But what happened before that? Jenna doesn't remember her life. Or does she? And are the memories really hers?
This fascinating novel represents a stunning new direction for acclaimed author Mary Pearson. Set in a near future America, it takes readers on an unforgettable journey through questions of bio-medical ethics and the nature of humanity. Mary Pearson's vividly drawn characters and masterful writing soar to a new level of sophistication.
The Adoration of Jenna Fox is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Author Notes
Award-winning young adult author, Mary E. Pearson, was born in 1955 in Southern California. She earned a BFA from Long Beach State University in art and received her teaching credentials from San Diego State University.
Mary's books include David v. God, Scribbler of Dreams, A Room on Lorelei Street, which won the 2006 Golden Kite Award for fiction, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, which was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award, The Miles Between, The Fox Inheritance, and Fox Forever. She is also the author of The Remnant Chronicles, which includes the books: The Kiss of Deception and The Heart of Betrayal.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) On the heels of her breakthrough novel, A Room on Lorelei Street, Pearson employs another lyrical first-person, present-tense voice to introduce us to a unique heroine. Jenna can remember nothing of her past as she emerges from a long coma, but pieces of her memory begin to return as she recuperates, leading her to question her family's sudden move, the strained relationship between her parents and her grandmother, and their incomplete, evasive answers about her accident. As she befriends a reclusive neighbor and some fellow classmates (she is newly enrolled in a special school), she learns how she survived her accident and, in a tense and thrilling climax, just what she must do to make things right. Jenna's memory loss is a cleverly effective way for Pearson to generate suspense and dispense information, and as it becomes apparent that the novel is set in a future with advanced biomedical technology, nearly every character must wrestle with the attendant ethical implications. Recalling Peter Dickinson's Eva and Monica Hughes's Keeper of the Isis Light, this provocative exploration of bioethics is heightened by the portrait of a family under enormous stress and the subtle thematic threads of faith and science woven through the story, making this a thriller with uncharacteristic literary merit. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
The ethics of bioengineering in the not-so-distant future drives this story. Jenna, 17, severely injured in a car crash, is saved by her heartbroken father, a scientist who illegally uses the latest medical technology to help her. Only 10 per cent of her original brain is saved, but Dad has programmed her by uploading the high-school curriculum. She could live two years, or 200. Is she a monster or a miracle? Why have her parents hidden her away? The science (including allusions to the dangerous overuse of antibiotics) and the science fiction are fascinating, but what will hold readers most are the moral issues of betrayal, loyalty, sacrifice, and survival. Jenna realizes it is her parents' love that makes them break the law to save her at any cost. The teen's first-person, present-tense narrative is fast and immediate as Jenna makes new friends and confronts the complicated choices she must make now.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2008 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Mary Pearson's novel (Holt, 2008) provides a thought-provoking and intriguing examination of what really makes us human and where to draw the line with fast developing technological and medical advances. Jenna Fox wakes from a coma more than a year after having an "accident." With no memory, she slowly learns to function physically, but she can't seem to connect emotionally. Written in a beautiful symphony of revealed memories, Jenna slowly begins to recognize that a secret is being kept from her and something complex and dangerous is going on. As she realizes that she essentially died in the infamous "accident" and was reborn through her father's controversial discovery. Jenna begins to question biomedical ethics and human nature. Narrator Jenna Lamia excels at evoking the haunting, yet detached way that Jenna begins to connect the events in her life. Combining science fiction, medical mystery, and teen relationships into an excellent package that is satisfying from beginning to end, this is a must-have for all collections.-Jessica Miller, New Britain Public Library, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Outstanding examination of identity, science and ethics. "I used to be someone. / Someone named Jenna Fox. / That's what they tell me," begins the hypnotic first-person narration. She woke from an 18-month coma two weeks ago, but she doesn't know how to smile or who her parents are. She watches recordings of each childhood year but they ring no bells. Why has her family brought her to a hidden cottage in California, distant from home and doctors? Mental flashes reveal a void of paralysis where "darkness and silence go on forever." Was that her coma? Voices call Jenna, hurry! into her ears--are those from the night of the accident, which she can't remember? Jenna recognizes that her gait is awkward and her memory peculiar (spotty about childhood while disturbingly perfect about academics), but asking questions provokes only furtive glances between her parents. Pearson reveals the truth layer by layer, maintaining taut suspense and psychological realism as she probes philosophical notions of personhood. A deeply humane and gripping descendent of Peter Dickinson's classic Eva. (Science fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
I look at my fingers again, the ones that trembled and shook just a few days ago at Mr. Bender's kitchen table. I bring them together, fingertip to fingertip, like a steeple. Each one perfect by appearance. But something is not . . . right. Something that I still have no word for. It is a dull twisting that snakes through me. Is this a tangled feeling that everyone my age feels? Or is it different? Am I different? I slide my steepled fingers, slowly, watching them interlace. Trying to interlace, like a clutched desperate prayer, but again, I feel like the hands I am lacing are not my own, like I have borrowed them from a twelve-fingered monster. And yet, when I count them, yes, there are ten. Ten exquisitely perfect, beautiful fingers. Excerpted from The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
