What would it be like to wake up as a teenager with a new biotech body but the same mind and memories in a transformed world, 260 years in the future? In this sequel to The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008), the present-tense viewpoint switches to Jenna's best friends, Locke and Kara, 16, who have become "little Frankensteins" after they and Jenna were severely injured in a car crash and an evil scientist programmed them to be bioperfect showroom monsters. On the run from the demonic doctor, they return to their Boston homes, but little is familiar after more than two centuries, and there are no parents, of course. They find the Jenna they knew, a teenager like them, even if "she is 277 years old now." As with the first book, the bioengineering will hold readers, and so will the moral issues of secrets, loyalty, and betrayal among friends and lovers.

In this Adoration of Jenna Fox sequel, an unscrupulous scientist restores Locke and Kara's minds into new, improved bodies. They escape into an alien future world with one target: finding Jenna. Locke is the main character, and it's through his viewpoint that we experience the story's thrilling suspense, the friends' charged reunion, and the admirably complex playing out of trust, ethics, and betrayal.

In a thought-provoking, atmospheric follow-up to The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008), Pearson again contemplates bioengineering and the nature of humanity. Some 260 years after Jenna Fox's father used controversial technology to upload Jenna's mind into an imitation body, Jenna's friends Locke and Kara, presumed dead in the same car accident, are uploaded into new bodies of their own. Both traumatized and connected to each other by the years their minds spent locked in claustrophobic "environments," the pair live for a year with Gatsbro, the doctor who brought them back. Then Kara discovers the exploitative ends for which he is keeping them, and the two flee their captivity with the (perhaps too convenient) help of an unexpected ally. Their journey from Gatsbro's facility through a greatly changed America and ultimately toward Jenna Fox, still alive in her BioGel body, is harrowing and eye-opening, but the heart of the story is its meditation on what it means to be human. Is Locke human, his consciousness uploaded into a taller, more malleable body? Is Kara, who has lost her compassion? What about Dot, a legless robot engineered only to drive a cab, who is nonetheless strong-willed, brave and rebellious? Though action scenes are occasionally predictable or over too soon, the book's timely and haunting questions will leave thoughtful readers with much to ponder. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

Pearson delivers another spellbinding thriller with this sequel to The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008), which takes place 260 years after the first. Medical advances have finally enabled the disembodied minds of Kara and Locke-who were critically injured in the same car accident as Jenna-to be restored in new, look-alike bodies. Locke narrates, as he and Kara wonder why they have been recreated, what the world holds for them, and if they really qualify as human. "What I think is all I have left," he admits. "My mind is the only thing that makes me different from a fancy toaster." When they learn Jenna has been alive for centuries while their minds existed only in some computer netherworld, they are angry but desperate to find her. The world they re-enter is unfamiliar: civil war has divided the United States, and Mars has been colonized for 150 years. A dazzling blend of science fiction, mystery, and teen friendship drama, Inheritance stands alone, but reading Adoration first will ground readers in the surreal and philosophically challenging terrain on which Pearson is working. Ages 12-up. (Aug.)

Gr 8 Up-This sequel to The Adoration of Jenna Fox (Holt, 2008) is narrated by Locke, one of Jenna's best friends and fellow car accident victim. After Jenna was given a new body, her friends Kara and Locke's consciousnesses were left in a set of hard drives. Now, 260 years later, they have been given new bodies by the mysterious Dr. Gatsbro, a man who clearly has his own agenda. He has sheltered Kara and Locke from the changes in the world by keeping them on his isolated estate. Locke is haunted by his lost time and disturbed by suspicions that something isn't quite right with Kara. Escape leads to a fast-paced cross-country adventure and search for Jenna, all with the help of a subversive "BioBot" taxi driver. Overall the story is gripping, urgent, and highly appealing, though the political landscape of the future world is underdeveloped and there are some predictable action sequences in the end. Fans of the original novel will enjoy seeing Jenna and learning about her (long) life. New readers are advised to start with the first book. Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA