Author: Beth Revis
Genre: young adult, science fiction, dystopia, romance
Published: October 6, 2014
Publisher: Scripturient Books
The future world is at peace.
Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift--the ability to enter people's dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother--to help others relive their happy memories.
But not all is at it seems.
Ella starts seeing impossible things--images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience--and influence--the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love--even though Ella's never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing...
Someone's altered her memory.
Ella's gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn't even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella's head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.
So who can she trust?
SPECIAL EDITION WITH EXTRA CONTENT AVAILABLE FROM BN, KOBO, and IBOOKS
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The Body Electric is an exciting dystopian novel with a nice twist and well wrapped up ending.
The Body Electric started rough for me. There were a lot of things being talked about in the beginning about the background of its post-apocalyptic world with a well structured government and androids. It’s really fascinating and perhaps it’s something that’s even possible (with some further and major development on science perhaps).
After the world had been established and all things have been digested by my tiny brain, The Body Electric just became that thrilling dystopian novel I enjoyed reading. The great thing about it is that there are barely any dull moments. There’s always something going on and there’re things I didn’t expect to happen.
Ella is a heroine who just follows what she thinks she must do although most of the times she’s just unsure of what she should really do. And I like her that way. Jack, on the other hand, is a fun reliable guy who’s there to give Ella the things she needs to know. Ella’s father is perhaps on one of the key characters in this novel. He may have been dead right from the beginning of the book but his presence is EVERYWHERE! Ella’s mother and Ella’s best friend, Akilah, are there to act as Ella’s kryptonite. They’re Ella’s weakness because they’re the only people she knows she holds dear.
Since The Body Electric is NOT a book series, everything has to fit in 300+ pages. In these 300+ pages, it had world development, romance involvement, and (of course) the expected rebel group (or something like that). When the rebel group was introduced, I had that mixed emotions. It has three established members with many people supporting them. The introduction of this group literally just ruined things for me. I mean sure, it’s a part of a dystopian novel. I see that. While everything about the state of the group was given some rationale, it still doesn’t sit completely right for me. I mean… three members? A very young leader? Owning a couple of hideouts? (Yeah, that’s just me complaining)
While I complain a lot about the whole rebel group, their entrance definitely gave the story a full swing on the action side of the novel. The first parts were building things up for Ella, there’s a lot of pondering and confusion and worries. But this side of the story just brings everything out. It’s full of action and full of revelations I didn’t expect.
The romance isn’t very big on this one. You can feel the presence of the romance although it’s not an in-your-face romance. Ella and Jack are cute. Ella has no clue whether to trust him or not. But Jack, on the other hand, is an adorable guy who jokes around but gets serious when he has to. There was a nice and subtle development on how Elle learns to trust and like Jack.
The climax was very thrilling. It pulled out a great deal of things. It brought out things I thought were already set aside. I was reading things quickly eager to know that happens next. The ending was beautiful and simple. Ella’s confusions were resolved. She was able to answer the questions she have about herself, about Jack, about what really happened to her family years ago.
Overall, The Body Electric is a great standalone dystopian novel. Despite being short, it was able to develop everything – give explanations on a great deal of things about the world and make Ella a character to like and remember.
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What I Like: (1) once I got the hang of the world, I was immediately absorbed, (2) the world is quite interesting especially with the whole android and nanorobotics kind of thing, (3) Ella was a pretty nice heroine, (4) Jack was a funny romantic guy (reminds me of why I like Prince Kai from Cinder), (5) the thrilling mystery, (6) how action-packed it is
What I Didn’t Like: (1) the confusing start, a lot of things were immediately thrown out in the beginning, (2) the romance wasn’t really all that, (3) there was a moment in the middle of the book where in I got bored, (4) a couple of secondary characters seem useless
~this book was provided in exchange for an honest review~
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