Fox Forever

Starred review from April 29, 2013
Pearson completes her Jenna Fox trilogy with this gripping and bittersweet volume. Locke Jenkins, whose consciousness was stored for 260 years until illegal technological advances allowed his body to be rebuilt (and enhanced), returns to his hometown of Boston. He's left Jenna, once the love of his life, in California, taking only her urgent wish that he embrace this second chance at life. First, Locke must repay the Network, a shadowy resistance group, for engineering his escape from earlier dire circumstances. The favor they ask greatly compromises his ethics: Locke must find out where the government is hiding an imprisoned rebel leader by ingratiating himself with Raine, the beautiful and conflicted daughter of a regime official. The city Locke arrives in doesn't resemble the Boston where he grew up, but there's less futuristic world-building in this installment than in The Fox Inheritance. What remains consistent is Pearson's seamless blending of speculative science with well-plotted action, as well as her ability to create introspective characters who ask challenging questions about what it means to be both human and humane. Ages 12 – up. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio.

January 15, 2013
Picking up directly after The Fox Inheritance (2011), this colorful, high-stakes finale is a speedy thriller through the streets, neighborhoods and deserted subway tunnels of future Boston. Under Locke's skin is blue BioPerfect, capable of things he barely understands. His existence is illegal. He's determined to hunt down any backups of his consciousness that may be trapped without sensory input inside technological environments--just as his own mind spun in a pitch-black hell for 260 years, bodiless. But first he owes a Favor to the Network, an underground and undefined rebellion, so he insinuates himself into the life of Raine--wealthy daughter of a dangerous Secretary of Security--to glean information about a political prisoner and a pile of money. Fast-paced action and clear settings make for a vivid page turner, told in tight first-person. As Locke falls for Raine, his emotional desperation ratchets up. Revelations are about people's connections--past and present, tugging on threads that reach back through the series. Broad politics takes a narrative back seat to the circle of protagonists, and the treatment of minds trapped without bodies is anticlimactic for a series centered around that concept; however, the previous title's theme about Bots with human dreams reaches gratifying and tragic fruition. The mind-bending Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008) can easily stand alone, but this is a crucial, memorable conclusion for readers who have moved on to Inheritance. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

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July 1, 2013

Gr 8 Up- Fox Forever continues the story of Jenna Fox's close friend and fellow accident victim, Locke Jenkins, restored to a body after having his consciousness stored on a hard drive for 260 years, an act both miraculous and horrifying, not to mention highly illegal. All Locke wants is a chance to live a normal life, but first he must complete the Favor he promised to the Network, a mysterious group of Non-Pacts resisting the current government. To do this, he has to return to his childhood home of Boston, a city changed but still heart-wrenchingly recognizable, and attempt to infiltrate the home of the Secretary of Security by befriending his 17-year-old daughter, Raine. He soon discovers that neither Raine nor the Favor is quite what it seems, and to help an old friend he may have to deviate from the Network's plan. Gripping and emotional, this is a more-than-satisfying conclusion to a thought-provoking trilogy.-Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2013
Grades 8-12 I stare at my gravestone begins the opening sentence in the third and final title in the Jenna Fox Chronicles. Bioengineering is still the core of the fast-paced action, and there is also romance as the first-person, present-tense narrative switches to Locke, 17, who returns home to Boston as part of the Resistance after 260 years of being trapped in a six-inch cube. He falls in love with Raine, daughter of the evil, powerful gangster boss. Born in different centuries, their love is amazingly timeless. Along with the bioperfect love story, the gruesome specifics will also appeal to readers, including half-human monsters without lips or eyelids. The questions will grip readers: Is it true that Raine's birth parents threw her out when she was born? Or did her father steal her from a heartbroken family? Driving the appeal of this series finale is a universal fantasy: What would it be like to return home after nearly three centuries?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)