Adaptation by Malinda Lo

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.

As science fiction goes I thought this was really good. A little predictable, maybe, but exploring things that are kinda rare out there right now, which is always a plus in my book.  The best thing I think this book has going for it is its voice.  It has such an honest, believable tone that it really cuts to the quick of what being a teenager and exploring your sexuality and boundaries is really like.  Wrapping up the tone is a thriller plot that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire book.  The pacing had a few issues, especially with the romance which seemed to really stall out the plot, but Lo really knows where to twist the knife, and although I had predicted many of the twists they came up in such an original way that I didn't mind that they were sci-fi standard.  I believe fans of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother should pick up this book, it seemed very similar in tone and overarching theme.


I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.