What’s on my mp3 player? The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary E. Pearson.

I put this book right up there at the tippy top with Margaret Peterson Haddix’s books for Wildly Interesting Premise. The way the story is told, the premise is a bit of a surprise, but once I learned it, I couldn’t stop pondering it, and I was eager to know how the character dealt with the situation.

Because of the surprise factor, I’m not going to say much. Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has been in a coma for a year following an accident. When she wakes up, she has no memories of her former life. Her family has also moved, so she has no one around her, besides her parents and grandmother, who can help her remember who she is. She struggles to figure out who she was, who she is now, how they’re related, and where she fits in and belongs.

As Jenna’s memory returns, she wonders what constitutes identity, exactly. Is it her name? How she looks? Her family and friends? The tangled web of her life’s experiences? How much or many of these things can you lose and still maintain your identity?

There’s more, but that’s the surprise.

As with most of my favorite books, this one digs deep to reveal some interesting truths, things I hadn’t put much thought into before. I’m dazzled by authors who can find and verbalize deep truths. I want to be able to do that.

I know that boys don’t often read books about girls, but I think this one might be able to cross the gender line. It’d be a good place to start, anyway.