The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson

This novel explores two major questions -- What makes us human? and What does it mean to truly love someone?

When Jenna wakes up from a coma, she doesn't remember anything -- even whether or not she has a best friend. Suddenly, however, she can remember the entire text of Walden or all the statistics of the Civil War. She begins to question what really happened to her.

I figured out what had happened to Jenna pretty quickly, and I thought that was bad, until I realized that it wasn't really the point of the book.

I am planning to use this book as an introduction to Brave New World in English 2 H.

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Ed Kennedy is a loser. He's twenty and he's accomplished basically nothing with his life; everything changes when he stops a bank robbery. He gets his 15 minutes of fame, but more importantly, he begins receiving playing cards (Aces to be specific) in the mail with cryptic messages. The messages lead him on a series of adventures in helping, and sometimes hurting, people to make their lives better.

This is one of those books that when I was reading, I wasn't sure how much I liked it. However, in the end, I can't stop thinking about it. In conversations, I want to quote this book. In class, I want to refer to this book.

I think this would be a great book for sophomores or juniors, and I think it would make a great addition/substition to the curriculum (it is not American Lit, so it might not work on the junior level in curriculum). Consider it! It's a well-written book with an interesting spin.