The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson, Mary E. (Cover image from Amazon.com)
Bibliography: Pearson, M. E. (2008). The adoration of Jenna Fox. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN: 978-085076684
SUMMARY
After being in a year-long coma, seventeen year old Jenna Fox wakes up with no memory of herself, her parents or her friends. She slowly regains the memories of who she was before the terrible car accident that killed her two best friends and nearly ended her own life. However, she also learns the truth about her miraculous recovery and the lengths her parents went to in order to save her. Jenna struggles to reconcile her past and current selves and she must also decide what (and how much) truly makes a person human.
MY IMPRESSIONS
This book was highly addictive and extremely well-written. The Adoration of Jenna Fox is an unconventional fantasy, and the plot would appeal to those who claim to dislike this genre. The boundaries of science--cloning, face transplants, genetic engineering--are realities in today's world, and this book asks some of the hard questions about this technology. What makes a human? Is it the brain? The heart? The soul? Is it a percentage of viable tissue? Or is it something else entirely? Pearson uses Jenna's amnesia to ensnare readers into the story and we find out together what happened that fateful evening when the car crashed and burned, before Jenna became more synthetic material than flesh and bone.
Jenna is a strong, interesting and captivating character. She also serves as an adept narrator as the reader slowly pieces together Jenna's situation and the high stakes of her new life. Pearson also creates a heart-breakingly realistic relationship between Jenna and her parents. I could feel their suffocating love and attention toward Jenna as they endlessly videotaped her entire childhood. I empathized with Jenna as she crumbled under the pressure to perform, to achieve, to be worthy of their almost painful devotion. I also loved the initial distance between her and her grandmother, Lily, and how they forged a new relationship in the aftermath of her parent's medical and scientific intervention. This new Jenna is stronger and more fearful, smarter and yet more innocent than the old Jenna. This lush, poetic novel is an excellent read, with a host of believable characters and a tense, dramatic ending.
ACTIVITIES
This book would be appropriate for a discussion with grades 8 to 12.
1. What do you think of Jenna's parent's decision to save Jenna's life? Can you understand why they made that choice? How did you feel when Allys's parents showed up at the end of the book? Were you surprised at the ending?
2. Do you think there should be limits to science? If so, where do you draw the line? Genetic engineering? Organ transplants? Who should make those decisions of how far science can go to save human lives?
3. What did you think of the grey pages interspersed throughout the book? How were they different than the normal chapters?
4. When do you think this story takes place? Do you think that Jenna's situation could become a reality given the advances in technology?
5. Why do you think Jenna tells Ethan the truth about the accident?
6. What is the significance of the title of this book?
7. How has Jenna and Lily's relationship changed after the accident?
8. Who do you think vandalized Mr. Bender's garage? Why?
9. Why did Jenna destroy the backups of herself, Kara and Locke? Would you have made the same decision? Why or why not?
2008 School Library Journal Best Books
2008 Lone Star Reading List
2008 Texas Tayshas High School Reading List
Locus Magazine 2008 Recommended Read
Never Jam Today Best of 2008
2009 ALA Best Books for Young Adults
VOYA Top Shelf Fiction 2008
Booklist 2009 Amazing Audiobooks
Kirkus Best Young Adult Books of 2008
Cynsational Books of 2008
Not Your Mother's Faves 2008
IndieBound "Top Ten" Summer 2008 Pick
2009 South Carolina Young Adult Book Award Master List
2009 Andre Norton Award Finalist
2009 Capitol Choices for Teens
2008 Golden Kite Honor Award
Librarians' Choices 2008
Rhode Island Teen Book Award Master List
Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award Master List
2010 Maine Student Book Award Master List
2010 Kentucky Book Award Master List
REVIEWS
"Jenna can remember nothing of her past as she emerges from a long coma, but pieces of her memory begin to return as she recuperates, leading her to question her family's sudden move, the strained relationship between her parents and her grandmother, and their incomplete, evasive answers about her accident. Jenna's memory loss is a cleverly effective way for Pearson to generate suspense and dispense information, and as it becomes apparent that the novel is set in a future with advanced biomedical technology, nearly every character must wrestle with the attendant ethical implications. Recalling Peter Dickinson's Eva and Monica Hughes's Keeper of the Isis Light, this provocative exploration of bioethics is heightened by the portrait of a family under enormous stress and the subtle thematic threads of faith and science woven through the story, making this a thriller with uncharacteristic literary merit."
The Horn Book Magazine, May-June 2008 v84 i3 p325(1)
"Pearson has constructed a gripping, believable vision of a future dystopia. She explores issues surrounding scientific ethics, the power of science, and the nature of the soul with grace, poetry, and an apt sense of drama and suspense. Some of the supporting characters are a bit underdeveloped, but Jenna herself is complex, interesting, and very real. This is a beautiful blend of science fiction, medical thriller, and teen-relationship novel that melds into a seamless whole that will please fans of all three genres."
School Library Journal, May 2008 v54 i5 p136(1)
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