How far would you go to save someone you love?
In "The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson, 17-year-old Jenna can spout off an hour's worth of facts about the French Revolution and recite books she's never read word for word, but she can't remember her favorite color. After a terrible car accident that sent her into a coma, she wakes up in a remote part of California with no memory of who she used to be.
All the home videos in the world can't make her feel like her old self. The old Jenna Fox was flawless. She had perfect grades, close friends and a talent for ballet. The new Jenna Fox isn't even enrolled in school and she can't walk correctly anymore, much less dance. No one outside of her family knows she exists.
This could have been a nice simplistic story about a girl trying to reinvent herself and decide who she wants to be. Pearson, though, takes her novel to another level entirely by adding bizarre details that are incongruous with the "facts" and make Jenna ask questions.
The tension crescendos and breaks when she realizes she is not entirely human anymore. Jenna injures herself and, while inspecting the gash, sees something strange: beneath her skin, where bones and muscles should be, there is plastic and an advanced medical substance called Bio Gel.
Only 10 percent of Jenna Fox's brain survived the accident. The rest of her mind and her body are artificial.
This leads to a whole new series of complexities. Jenna is something illegal and unpredictable; she could live for the next two years or 200. Although her existence is an enormous secret, Jenna begins going to school and develops relationships outside her claustrophobic little world.
"The Adoration of Jenna Fox" is not an easy, breezy read. It really made me think. What does it mean to be human? Jenna, who is something very close to a robot, still feels emotion. She is still just a teenage girl trying to figure it all out. Is there a definable limit to humanity?
The novel also raises difficult issues with technology and scientific ethics. With the amount of technology in our lives, something like Bio Gel may very well be invented one day. Jenna's father bypasses medical laws to save his daughter's life. Was he right to hold others to ethical standards he didn't keep himself?
All of these questions and more are presented for readers. Pearson's novel is not just about a teenage girl coming of age. It isn't purely science fiction or philosophy. It's an intriguing, provocative blend of the three concepts and a tense, fascinating novel for anyone high school age or older.
