Pearson, Mary E.: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008)
Written by: Mary E. Pearson
Genre: YA/Science Fiction
Pages: 265 (Hardcover)
So I kind of screwed up with this one. I read it right at the start of January, but kept putting off writing down my thoughts until a couple of days ago, and when I finally sat down to write a review, I realized I couldn't do it. The book was too far removed in my memory to do it justice, especially given the fact that it's the challenge read for January and of all the books that need justice in a review, it's the challenge books. So I looked at the length of the book and thought, "What the hell? Let's just read it again." So I did. And I took notes. :) Of course, I couldn't have done this if it'd been a longer book, but I've learned my lesson: either read the challenge book towards the end of the month (and hope I finish it in time), or write up a review of the sucker the second I finish it, even if I won't post said review until later. I think I'll go with the latter option. :)
The premise: ganked from BN.com: 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?
Review style: spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, and really, even though I was spoiled going into the book, it's kind of a SHAME to be spoiled. That said, anyone who's familiar with SF will see the big twist a mile away, so it's not THAT big of a surprise. But I will be discussing spoilers, as well as comparing it a bit to Robin Wasserman's Skinned, which came out the same year. So if you don't want to be spoiled, skip to the "My Rating" section of the review, and you shall be fine. :) Otherwise, read forward!
Coming back to the book a second time in less than a month was an interesting experience. Both times, I knew the truth of Jenna Fox: that she'd been in a car accident and that her parents put her in another body to save her life. During the first read, I was impatient with most of the book because I already knew the truth and was frustrated by the fact that Jenna was so completely NOT aware of the truth.
However, the second time, I was far more patience. Nothing had changed in terms of how I approaching the book, save that this time, I knew the ending, which really didn't make much of a difference. Instead, I found myself able to admire the way Pearson builds Jenna's world and how she sucks the reader into her story. After all, this is technically YA science fiction, but the YA sneaks up on you, and more to the point, so does the science fiction. It's kind of the perfect book for people who would like SF but don't yet KNOW they would like SF.
But the book blooms in other ways too: language for starters. Jenna's learning curve has her speaking short, simple, direct sentences to the reader, and her usage and style evolves as she learns more about herself and her world. And through-out that curve, there are moments of real beauty in the prose, and not just in the use of language, but what that language means in terms of the larger story.
Example, one of the regular features is Jenna's need to look up words. On page eighteen, she gives us the definition of the word "lost", which are:
1. No longer known. 2. Unable to find the way. 3) Ruined or destroyed.
Jenna's response to this definition: "I'm afraid I already am."
Little moments like this are scattered through-out the book, and are powerful. Powerful because even if you don't know Jenna's secret, you ache in understanding. Powerful because when you already know Jenna's secret, you realize she's more lost than even she knows.
Another passage that speaks to everyone and anyone who has ever been raised by another person: I always thought it was Claire who held all the power. I was wrong." (112)
Who can't relate to that? That moment when you realize that it's not just your parent who has power over you, but that you have power over your parent? If you don't relate to that, then you're not being honest, or more disturbingly, you never, ever, EVER disagreed or rebelled from your parents, EVER. :)
But let's get back to the book: the beauty of it is that Jenna goes from nothing to something we can only imagine. And Pearson also manages to pack a lot of serious questions into the book without coming off as preachy. The contrast between nature and science and how far science can go before it's too far? Before it destroys nature? Whether or not engineered species are a good or bad thing, and if said species wipe out the original, is that a crime or simply evolution? The difference between restoration and creation, and whether or not anything can truly be made new again. Whether or not something can be truly replicated. Then there's the take on health care: Pearson has shown us a fascinating but frightening system that takes peoples' lives and turns them into a series of numbers. It's frightening to think about how a person can suffer once they've reached their quota, or if what they needs surpasses that, but really, I have to wonder, how different is it from the current health care system in the US? After all, people suffer every day not because of points, but because of lack of money or lack of insurance. There's horror stories everywhere, and Pearson translates it into such a way that really resonates.
I also like how she handles religion. People of faith aren't painted with a stereotypical brush, and are treated with actual three-dimensionality instead. Lily doesn't simply write Jenna off, as much as she'd like to, and the relationship that grows between them is really lovely and really honest.
Then of course, there's the science fiction. I really, really like how Pearson describes her science. It makes sense, and for readers who aren't expecting science fiction out of this book, that's an important thing.
And then there's a larger question: how can a person truly live without death staring them in the face?
Jenna's a sympathetic character too, someone we can relate to, because her desires are simple: she wants life, and not life in the living and breathing sense, but a life in terms of what matters. Interacting with people, relating with people, making decisions that make you who you are. Over and over, I was impressed with Jenna's astute observations, and I loved how she had the ability to really see people, to know the difference between truth and lies. That was an excellent aspect to her character, because it took away the drama and angst of misunderstanding, which was a relief. Could you imagine the love triangle that would've sprouted between Jenna, Ethan, and Dane otherwise?
Speaking of Dane, I liked that his scene provided Jenna with the much needed observation that while someone might be 100% natural human (or 100% legal), it doesn't mean the person is really human. Some humans are more monster than human, and some monsters are more human than monster. That's a theme we see over and over in SF and fantasy, and it worked well here. However, the whole subplot with Dane felt a little anti-climatic, because I figured Jenna's defense of herself wouldn't be enough, though I'm glad it was.
There were a few things that had me scratching my head: why wasn't Jenna's original/dying body kept around to keep up her father's cover? After all, if people could SEE the dying body, then no one would think to look for her, right? Then there's the absolutely RIDICULOUS fact that Claire didn't change Jenna's last name when she enrolled her in the charter school. Sure, Jenna didn't understand what she was at the time, so the lie may not have stuck, but that felt like a bad oversight there, you know? It didn't take long for Allys to put two and two together, and frankly, if the family was being watched as closely as the book implies, I don't think it'd be hard for anyone official to put two and two together either.
I also preferred the scene with Jenna and Lily in the church (the baptism) as an ending instead of the one we get, where it's much later and we learn what's happened since. The actual end feels tacked on in a way, and I was kind of insulted that Jenna didn't have her daughter until AFTER Ethan was long gone. It sucks that Ethan never knew his daughter, you know? But the metaphorical weight of the last scene isn't nearly as powerful to me as the metaphorical weight of the baptism. I didn't need to know how everything would end up in the future. The story resolved just right with the baptism. At least, it did for me. :)
Now, I said I'd discuss some comparisons to Robin Wasserman's Skinned. Why? Because both books pretty much take the same inciting incident (beautiful blonde teen girls in horrible, disfiguring car accidents with parents who are able to save their daughters' consciousness and download them into a new, more immortal like body) and the branch off in very different directions. And it's important to note that BOTH books were published in the same year, which points to the fact that something in the collective, artistic, writerly conscious inspired both of these writers about the same time (maybe), and it's coincidence they were published in the same year. Frankly, I still say I won't be surprised if I learned that both writers were Battlestar Galactica fans at the time, because the show dealt with similar themes and questions (what makes us human, and are we more or less human than something artificially created?).
At any rate, it was some of the similar details that had be impatient during my first read of The Adoration of Jenna Fox: both Jenna's and Lia's bodies thrash and convulse on the onset, for example, and because I'd seen this before, I was less forgiving of seeing it twice. But cosmetically, there are differences: Jenna has to build her memory from scratch, whereas Lia wakes up with hers in tact. Jenna's parents don't regret their decision, whereas Lia's parents do. Both girls are trying to be normal when they know they aren't, but the difference is that everyone in Lia's world KNOWS she's different, which isn't the case for Jenna Fox. But the larger differences are more important: Lia's story is one of coming to terms with who and what she is, and it pretty much takes the whole book to do so. Jenna's story is one of rebirth and discovery and acceptance, and frankly, I think it flows a wee bit better, because there's more of an arc to Jenna's story than there is in Lia's. Not to say Lia's story is inferior by any means: they are different characters in similar situations. There's similar themes (it takes the threat of death to have the ability to live) and similar focuses on religion (Wasserman paints her religious characters with a bit more black and white though, although it's handled well enough that it doesn't feel like caricature). But on the whole, they're very, very different books, but the similarities themselves are a wee bit eerie, particularly the cosmetic ones.
But it was those cosmetic reasons that kept me from putting BOTH of these books in the poll when we voted for January, because on the surface, they're just too similar, and it takes actually reading the books to enjoy just how different they are. I will say that Pearson's book feels a little more like literature in its scope, whereas Wasserman's feels a little more contemporary, a little more YA. Not that's an insult by any means, but if you were to hand me both manuscripts with no cover art and with no knowledge of who the target audience is, I'd have a harder time pegging Pearson's as YA than I would Wasserman's.
My Rating
Must Have: considering I've already re-read this book, I should say it's close to a keeper. What makes this book a work of beauty is the way it builds and blooms into a larger story. We, like Jenna, start out small and slowly work our way out to the larger world, and Pearson has created a rather believable future in regards to health care and the results of science and technology. And the questions that are raised really, really, REALLY make you think. Pearson doesn't preach, and she imbues her heroine with the kinds of observations that really make this book something beautiful. If you're a fan of Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon or Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark, then Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox is a book you absolutely MUST get your hands on. It's a beautiful read and it's worth coming back to. Trust me, I read it twice in one month. :)
Cover Commentary: while it was the trade paperback cover that got my attention initially (see behind the cut), it's the hardcover art that I ended up going for when I had the choice. For starters, it's just more appealing to me, and for whatever reason, I like that this book doesn't scream SF at me. But how's this for marketing? While I prefer the hardcover art to the trade, I'd seen the hardcover in stores and, while I admired it, I never checked it out, whereas when I saw the trade paperback art on Amazon, I clicked on the book immediately to see what it was about. Go figure. Both are good covers, but they're very different and they appeal to different types of readers, IMHO.
Further Reading: the theme for January was YA Futuristic Fiction, which to me is pretty much SF for YA (with some differences, I'll admit), so here's a list of other books that might tickle your fancy if you liked this one (all based on theme, not content). Keep in mind, I haven't read all of these books, so this is just a place for you to start looking, not necessarily an endorsement (but I have read some, if you want to ask which *winks*):
S.A. Bodeen: The Compound
Emma Clayton: The Roar
Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire
James Dashner: The Maze Runner
Alison Goodman: Singing the Dogstar Blues
Michael Grant: Gone, Hunger
Gemma Malley: The Declaration, The Resistance
Patrick Ness: The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer
Susan Beth Pfeffer: Life As We Knew It, The Dead and the Gone, The World We Live In
Maria V. Snyder: Inside Out
Dom Testa: The Comet's Curse, The Web of Titan
Robin Wasserman: Skinned, Crashed
Scott Westerfeld: Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras
Further Viewing: if you enjoyed the themes in this book and the basic premise, you may want to check out the current television series on SyFy called Caprica, which is a prequel series to Battlestar Galactica. It's not necessary to watch BSG before Caprica, but if you ARE interested in BSG, make sure you get the 2003 version (and watch the mini-series first!) and not the version filmed back in the eighties. ;) But hey, Caprica is brand new, with only a two-hour pilot and a single episode under it's belt, so it won't be hard to catch up if you're interested. :)
More Reviews: check out the reviews book club participants have posted! If you reviewed this book but are not featured here, please comment below with a link to your review and I'll add it here.
giraffedays: Review Here
jawastew: Review Here
lilychild: Review Here
starlady38: Review Here
temporaryworlds: Review Here
Book Club Poll: this is the only way I can really track participation, so if you follow this journal, answer, okay? :)
Poll January Participation
If you started but couldn't finish it, please comment and talk about the reasons why. What turned you off from the book? How far did you go before throwing in the towel?
And as you already know, the February Book Club selection is Octavia E. Butler's Kindred. Some of you may have started it already, but if you want details on where to find it, just click here.