Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Title: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Year of Publication: 2008
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Pages: 265

First Line: "I used to be someone."

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name.  She has just awoken from a year-long coma, and she's still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it.  Her parents show her home movies of her life, her memories, but she has no recollection.  Is she really the same girl she sees on screen?  Little by little, Jenna begins to remember.  Along with the memories come questions -- questions no one wants to answer for her.  What really happened after the accident?

Source: Back of book.

Review:  In contrast to Scribbler of Dreams, The Adoration of Jenna Fox features a relatively simplistic style and vocabulary.  I found this style to suit the author much better, though it still felt indulgent in places, especially with the inserted poetry, which is also in her other novel.  Overall I enjoyed The Adoration of Jenna Fox even though it was very predictable.  Like SoD, though, the book included characters and events that, in the end, felt entirely irrelevant to the novel as a whole, which was frustrating and left me feeling like some things had not been tied up neatly.  Also frustrating is the lack of knowledge regarding Jenna's personality pre-accident.  There is some indication as to what she was like before, but we know about as much as Jenna knows, which I felt was not the right way to go about this particular scenario.  Pearson left a lot of possibilities unturned, such as the church and its role in the novel, but she does bring up some interesting ideas and points through her story.

Worst part: Feeling of incompleteness

Best part:  Jenna's dad

Grade: C+

Other Books by This Author: The Second Life of Locke Jenkins, The Fox Inheritance, Scribbler of Dreams, The Miles Between, A Room on Lorelei Street, David v. God

Author's Website: Mary E. Pearson

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