Bionic

by Suzanne Weyn

Overview

Mira has always almost had it all... until it all crashes and burns. She's hurt in a horrible car accident, and the only way the doctors can help is to try experimental prosthetics and chips that are implanted directly into her brain. It's a huge risk, but after months of testing and therapy, Mira is back, and better than ever.But soon her friends turn against her as their parents call her on unfair advantages and get her cut from lacrosse and the scholarships she was depending on for college. And with her enhanced hearing, she knows how many people in her school and her town are calling her a robot, a cyborg.Is that true? Is Mira human, or is she somehow something other? How can she overcome the ways people see her and just be herself... especially if she's not really sure who that is anymore?Suzanne Weyn is always at the cutting edge when it comes to new tech and the questions it raises about the world we live in.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545906777
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	10/25/2016
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	HL620L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Suzanne Weyn has written many books for young adults, including Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters, Distant Waves, Reincarnation, Empty, and The Bar Code Tattoo. She lives in New York, and you can find her online at www.suzanneweynbooks.com.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Suzanne Weyn:

*"Wholly original." -- Booklist, starred review

"A page-turner." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Told in gripping first-person narrative, this novel features interesting characters and creates a strong sense of time and place, while exploring the mysteries of the spirit world." -- School Library Journal

From the Publisher

09/01/2016
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

School Library Journal

2016-07-20
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)

Kirkus Reviews

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