Book Review: The Body Electric

Title: The Body Electric
Author: Beth Revis
Publisher:  Scripturient Books
Publication Date: October 6, 2014
Genre: Young Adult // Sci-Fi // Romance
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher (Netgalley)


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 (goodreads)

The Body Electric is an imaginative tale told in an equally breath-taking setting. I think I would have appreciated this book more if I had read Beth's other book, Across the Universe.

Plot: When I first saw this book, my first reaction was "INCEPTION!" I was wrong, but that's not a bad thing! The Body Electric caught my attention from page one, in which we learn about Ella's family life and the technology that could bring a civilization to its knees. The pacing so slow, but steady with plenty of plot twists along the way. I will admit though, the plot twists began to feel a bit overwhelming, I didn't know what to believe  by the end of the book.

Characters: Ella is our narrator and she is what kept me turning pages. We are only given snippets of her past and her life with her family, so I was eager to gobble up any bits of information that she would reveal. There is a love story, but it's not a traditional love story. Jack comes into Ella's life in a whirlwind. He claims that they had dated for over a year, but yet Ella has no memories of him whatsoever, which lends itself to the overall mystery as well. Their relationship was a bit hard to get into because they were both coming from different places: Jack with his assertions of their love and Ella's fear of opening herself up to this would-be stranger. I didn't feel as though they ever met in the middle, and that there were two warring sides for a majority of the book. 

Setting: This book has bumped Across the Universe up on my TBR, like a lot. The two books have a shared world and it is intriguing. Nanobots are used to fight infectious diseases, androids do everything from prepare our food to serve as personal caretakers. With the abundance of androids, I was reminded of Cinder. The Body Electric is by no means a copy,  but the role of androids is important in both books. 

Short N Sweet: The Body Electric is a refreshing novel with a rich and engaging world. The only downfall is that it had more plot twists than a M. Night Shyamalan film. 


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