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 (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">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. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Apr.)

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.

Jenna can't remember her past after emerging from a coma, but pieces of her memory begin to return as she recuperates. The novel is set in a future with advanced biomedical technology, and characters wrestle with the attendant ethical implications. With faith and science woven throughout, this provocative thriller is heightened by its portrait of a family under enormous stress.

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)

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

"Then what am I?" asks seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox when she is told the truth. When her body is beyond saving after a car accident, her father's medical team creates a new, "illegal" body infused with "Bio-Gel." Her brain is scanned, improved, and uploaded, but all that physically remains of the original Jenna is "ten per cent" of her brain-the "butterfly." She remembers the accident-for which she was blamed-and discovers the back-ups of her brain and those of her two friends who were killed. Jenna then makes a decision between betraying her parents or being loyal to her friends and between protecting herself or sacrificing her dependence on a machine-should things go wrong. Now living in California, where she will have a longer "shelf-life," Jenna slowly begins to make a new path for herself. Pearson creates an extraordinarily fine novel. There are clear explanations of how the new Jenna is created. The ethics of biotechnological advances are debated and seamlessly woven into a well-developed story. Pearson writes with acuity about the dilemma of parents who adored their daughter and could not let her go and of the complex relationships among Jenna, her parents, and her grandmother. Jenna's innermost emotions and recovered memories, including reliving the "hell" of days in a dark place, unable to express her wish to die, are conveyed in free verse on pages interspersed with her first-person narrative. In this beautifully written novel, Pearson deals with the heart of what it means to be human.-Hilary Crew.