review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Okay, so I might have said I wouldn't be posting for a while.
Well I lied.

So here goes my first review! Sorry if my lexicon has died a little, it's been a while since I had an English class. Hopefully my writing skills haven't gotten too rusty.



The Adoration of Jenna Fox
(Jenna Fox Chronicles, #1)

Author: Mary E. Pearson
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Release Date: April 2008
Pages: 266





Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a coma, they tell her, and she is still recovering from a terrible accident in which she was involved a year ago. But what happened before that? Jenna doesn't remember her life. Or does she? And are the memories really hers?
This fascinating novel represents a stunning new direction for acclaimed author Mary Pearson. Set in a near future America, it takes readers on an unforgettable journey through questions of bio-medical ethics and the nature of humanity. Mary Pearson's vividly drawn characters and masterful writing soar to a new level of sophistication.

So this is a novel I read over my Spring Break (which was very short, sadly). I have to just put it out there - I am someone who judges a book by its cover. I don't do that with people, of course, but for books? Oh, yeah.
This is one of the reasons I decided to give The Adoration of Jenna Fox a try, since the cover caught my attention. I'd like to say it speaks to me, you know? Just the way that you don't know whether the puzzle pieces, which seem to represent her essence, are slowly falling away (thus taking her identity with them), or else they are reforming her to become whole again. The colors are pretty snazzy, too.
The title was interesting to me, as well. Adoration isn't necessarily a word I'd say gets used too often, so for Pearson to have integrated it into her title... Well, let's just say it's pretty significant as far as symbolism goes.

Anyways! Down to the meat of it. Jenna wakes up from an unexplainable year-long trauma and finds herself thrown into this world she has no recollection of whatsoever. As much as her family tries to remind her of the past, Jenna initially can't bring herself to remember any memories, let alone the family members themselves.
As she gradually starts piecing back the puzzle pieces of her past, she gets her hesitant mom to send her to school. Little does she know it's a school specially designed for teens with... "problems." It's there that she meets Ethan, who of course is the love interest in the story.

I found myself really enjoying this book. The way the author writes is very engaging, I felt myself understanding Jenna's confusion after being woken from her coma, and making the journey with her toward her recovery was filled with cliffhangers at times.

And I recently found out that there will be a new installment to this series (which I didn't even know was a series), with a description that can be found here. I actually don't know how I feel about this novel continuing... I felt the first novel did the story justice. I don't know, others will probably feel differently. What do you think?