29 January 2013

YA Book Review: Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Release Date: 18 September 2012
Publisher: Little Brown BFYR
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased

Goodreads description:
Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.

Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.

Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.
My Thoughts...
What it's about: While I'm not much of a science fiction reader, Adaptation caught my eye as part of a project that I'm currently working on about LGBT teen literature. Since I know Malinda Lo's other novels incorporate LGBT characters, I guessed that this one would as well and grabbed it.  Little did I know that it would suck me in the way that it did. Adaptation takes government conspiracy and the possibilities of modern medicine/science to terrifying levels in a story that pulls you in from the beginning and had me finding every spare moment to keep reading.

Who it's about: Reese is one of those characters that I simply liked and connected with from the very start.  From her crush on her debate partner to her relationship with her parents, her life and world (well, before everything goes crazy...and even a little after) is relateable.  She came alive on the pages for me as a reader. David and Amber with equally interesting secondary characters.  I found them both intriguing and would sometimes wish I could just spend a few moments in their heads to get more info on what they were thinking.

What I liked: Really...pretty much everything.  Reese's vulnerability, the storytelling, the story, the conspiracies, the friends, the enemies, the family.

The bottom line:  If you're already a fan of Malinda Lo's writing, then I think this is a must read.  If you are fascinated by science fiction and conspiracy theories, than this is a must read.  Really, if anything about the premise catches your attention, give it a try.  This was, for me, a truly awesome read and I enjoyed every minute.  The best part was seeing on Goodreads that there was going to be a book #2 because I need more!

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