The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from a year-long coma—so she’s been told—and she is still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. But what happened before that? She’s been given home movies chronicling her entire life, which spark memories to surface. But are the memories really hers? And why won’t anyone in her family talk about the accident? Jenna is becoming more curious. But she is also afraid of what she might find out if she ever gets up the courage to ask her questions. What happened to Jenna Fox? And who is she really?
I have very mixed feelings about this book. At first I was completely in love with it. The story was great, the idea was wonderful, and it warranted my reactions. Because I definitely reacted to this book. My heart broke as Jenna uncovered her own story and I was indignant when she was misused. I was able to relate to her.
But then I thought about it too much. Partly because I just read this book for my YA lit class (YES! I'm taking a YA lit class and loving it. My life is a little awesome), and I was set to the task of simply journaling about the book. I filled up quite a few pages with my ideas only to realize how simple this novel really is.
It has one major theme - identity. It turns out that when you look beyond the story, it's beating you over the head with - Who am I really? What is my purpose? How do you find your identity again when you go through a change?
Basically something that plagues every teenager. Everyone is experiencing change and I think Jenna speaks to that. Jenna is sort of an extreme case of identity loss and in that way she is able to have some answers to questions everyone has.
Beyond that though, I found the plot to be very simple...it was a lot of Jenna doesn't know, Jenna finds out the truth, Jenna freaks out, Jenna's parents explain it all away. This process repeated a few times through the book. The characters were very flat. So much could have been done with Jenna's love interest, but I didn't really get much from him. Like why did he even like her in the first place? Jenna's grandma is really cool, but again, she has little depth.
The entire world revolves around Jenna, I get that, but the world has to have some kind of substance.
Even with my critiques of the book, I still really enjoyed it. It left me with so many questions and I'll definitely be picking of The Fox Inheritance that was just released at the end of August. The sequel deals with Jenna's mysterious friends Kayla and Locke, so that should be fascinating. I love the concept of Jenna, so I am curious to see where Mary E. Pearson takes her next.
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from a year-long coma—so she’s been told—and she is still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. But what happened before that? She’s been given home movies chronicling her entire life, which spark memories to surface. But are the memories really hers? And why won’t anyone in her family talk about the accident? Jenna is becoming more curious. But she is also afraid of what she might find out if she ever gets up the courage to ask her questions. What happened to Jenna Fox? And who is she really?
I have very mixed feelings about this book. At first I was completely in love with it. The story was great, the idea was wonderful, and it warranted my reactions. Because I definitely reacted to this book. My heart broke as Jenna uncovered her own story and I was indignant when she was misused. I was able to relate to her.
But then I thought about it too much. Partly because I just read this book for my YA lit class (YES! I'm taking a YA lit class and loving it. My life is a little awesome), and I was set to the task of simply journaling about the book. I filled up quite a few pages with my ideas only to realize how simple this novel really is.
It has one major theme - identity. It turns out that when you look beyond the story, it's beating you over the head with - Who am I really? What is my purpose? How do you find your identity again when you go through a change?
Basically something that plagues every teenager. Everyone is experiencing change and I think Jenna speaks to that. Jenna is sort of an extreme case of identity loss and in that way she is able to have some answers to questions everyone has.
Beyond that though, I found the plot to be very simple...it was a lot of Jenna doesn't know, Jenna finds out the truth, Jenna freaks out, Jenna's parents explain it all away. This process repeated a few times through the book. The characters were very flat. So much could have been done with Jenna's love interest, but I didn't really get much from him. Like why did he even like her in the first place? Jenna's grandma is really cool, but again, she has little depth.
The entire world revolves around Jenna, I get that, but the world has to have some kind of substance.
Even with my critiques of the book, I still really enjoyed it. It left me with so many questions and I'll definitely be picking of The Fox Inheritance that was just released at the end of August. The sequel deals with Jenna's mysterious friends Kayla and Locke, so that should be fascinating. I love the concept of Jenna, so I am curious to see where Mary E. Pearson takes her next.
