Bionic

A talented white athlete and musician, high school senior Mira has a shot at a lacrosse scholarship--until she and her band hit a fuel truck on the way to a gig. The catastrophic accident damages her brain, disfigures her face, destroys her knee, and leaves her a double amputee, taking her right arm and left leg. Rehab is difficult, and with so many artificial parts, she feels even less like herself. Her adjustment is realistically rough without being bleak, and her ambivalent use of antidepressants is handled sympathetically. Mira's relationships with friends and family--including her refreshingly empathetic autistic brother, who inspires a recurrent butterfly metaphor--convey both trauma and resilience. When she receives experimental prostheses that she controls via a chip in her brain, her outlook improves dramatically. Suddenly she's winning swim meets, looking like a model, playing guitar, and singing like a virtuoso, and remembering everything as though reliving it...and losing friends and being kicked off teams for her unfair advantage. Weyn draws on current technological developments as well as athletic and ethical controversies surrounding sophisticated prosthetics to frame her tale, but Mira's over-the-top, superhero-esque transformation veers into vague science-fiction territory, making her dilemma markedly less nuanced than that of her real-life counterparts. While experimental technology can spark wild "what ifs," even "what ifs" need explanations, and lacking some details, Mira's transformation is unfortunately too extreme to mainstain willing suspension of disbelief. (Fiction. 13-18) COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-Lacrosse star Mira's dreams of an athletic scholarship are crushed when she is in a car accident on the way to a gig with her band. When she wakes up, she has brain damage that keeps her confused and an arm and a leg have been amputated. Mira is put forth as a civilian candidate for experimental surgeries to receive a microchip in her head and cable yarn muscles, along with realistic-looking limbs. She is banned from sports as a result of her enhancements and impulsively quits school as a result. Her brain chip lets her learn skills (like guitar) just from watching someone else play, but the chip might be altering her personality. Taking place in modern times with advanced medical technology, this story deals with the struggles of reinventing oneself after change. Uneven pacing holds the book back at times, but the emotional relationships Mira has with family and friends help to propel her to learn who she is after the accident. Weyn writes a novel filled with hopes and dreams while believably portraying the physical and mental aspects of the rehab process. Teens who enjoyed Mary E. Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox or Megan Miranda's Soulprint will pick this up. VERDICT Purchase for reluctant readers and collections in need of science fiction.-Rebecca Greer, Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative, FL

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