Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson


Just before school was out for the year, my class and I were watching book trailers and this one came up. Immediately many of my students wanted to read it. After finishing a bunch of adult novels I finally got back to reading some Young Adult ones. This is a tough book to review because I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but I'll give it a try!
Jenna Fox has just woken up from a coma that she has been in for a year and a half. To say she is confused is a total understatement. Jenna has very few memories of her life. She has to take her mother, father and grandmother's word for the type of person she was before the coma. Then, Jenna's memories start coming back in bits and pieces. This leads to a lot of confusion for her as what she remembers doesn't match what her family is telling her. The memories of the accident also cause her a great deal of confusion. Jenna's fight to regain her life is an interesting one to watch. The story is set in a time when health care is a mixture of science and technology and when the ethics of saving people is a debate that has people on opposite sides of this issue.

To be honest, I found this book a bit hard to get into. I felt sorry for Jenna, but the mystery of the way she was being treated by her parents and especially her grandmother were very confusing. Once I read about a hundred pages though it got very interesting and the pace picked up considerably. The concept of the book is quite interesting. I think this book would be a great read for an adult book club. I'd love to chat with students about it as well. This book deals with the big question of what would a parent do to keep their child alive?
Here is the book trailer that grabbed my students.

2 comments:

  1. I have a copy of this book just waiting to be read! I have wanted to read it for a while but just haven't yet. Maybe I will recommend it for my adult book club.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd love to know what you think. I'll be interested to hear what the kids think. The first 100 pages were tough to get through. Let me know when you finish it.

    ReplyDelete