The Body Electric

4.5 Originally posted at Vampire Book Club Are you tired of the stresses of everyday life? Do you wish to be able to go back to a simpler time? Well then, make an appointment at the Reverie Mental Spa. They have the finest scientists developing the latest technology that will let each patron relive their happiest day over and over again. Come on in and relax for an hour or two. Your dreams are safe in reverie. About twenty years after the Seccessionary War, the world is at peace. Well, as peaceful as the world can get. Those who seek further escape from the stresses of everyday life can go to the Reverie Mental Spa to relive their happiest moment over and over again. Total relaxation. Ella Shepherd is interning at the spa, which features her mother’s invented technology, the reveries, as they’re called. When Ella discovers she’s able to enter other people’s reveries, it’s not long before the government comes calling and asks her to spy for them in order to root out possible terrorist cells trying to overthrow the government. Ella is all for helping out, until she starts having hallucinations featuring her dead father. When a boy named Jack—who apparently knows Ella, yet she has no recollection of him—warns her from trusting her best friend, Ella starts to question the possibility that her memories have been tampered with. There are several classic sci-fi stories that Beth Revis pays homage to with The Body Electric. One stands out from the rest, but to tell you would be a kind of spoiler to anyone familiar with those stories already. There are ways to successfully adapt a classic story/concept, and Revis does it with such finesse (and you can truly tell she loves the source material from where some of these ideas came) that she turns around and makes the story her own. I know oftentimes when so much of the plot is based in the theoretical, thereby forcing the reader to suspend what they believe is real along with the characters, it can be frustrating. Revis handles Ella’s situation very well in that by the beginning of the book Ella is already someone who does not trust easily. She thinks through her actions thoroughly with every decision she makes. Even if her decisions lead to more questions or are ultimately the wrong ones, I was never willing to give up on Ella and her fight to find the truth of herself. I liked going on the journey with her. There were a few bits of info that I saw coming a mile away, but I liked going along with Ella in discovering how things ended up they way they did. I think by making some surprises easy to guess, Revis was then able to blindside me with the more surprising revelations later on. The Body Electric is a book that will benefit from multiple readings in order to go back to pick up all the clues littered throughout. In true sci-fi fashion the ending doesn’t necessarily mean the end. Though on the surface the conclusion is solid and definite, I think there is a note of possibility, whether ominous or positive I cannot say, it’s open to the interpretations of each reader.

I stumbled onto this standalone Sci-Fi thriller by Beth Revis, and found myself hooked from the first page to the very last, uncovering the mysteries it held. First thing that jumps out to me is the super fast pacing of this book: the chapters are short (usually 3-4 pages on my e-reader) and intriguing end of chapter cliffhangers and hooks had me reading ‘one more chapter’ quite a bit and kept the plot moving through it’s many twists and turns (and there are a lot, nothing is what it first seems). There’s a bunch of foreshadowing and even though I had hunches, I was blown away by some of the reveals and felt rewarding when I got to them. For the setting, it takes place in Malta, several centuries in the future and two decades after the Secessionary War, the bloodiest war in history. Malta and New Venice are vivid futuristic settings (for the most part, some of the setting in the second half was muddled here and there) and I could feel like I was in both the real life New Venice and the reveries, experiencing what the protagonist, Ella, was feeling. At first, New Venice seems like a dream come true, but slowly reveals the wool over your eyes and was well done. Though I thought it was interesting to have Ella talk about the Azure Window being destroyed in the war, since it got destroyed in 2017 (2 1/2 years after release). The science and technology was complex and developed, yet simple enough for me to follow along. It dealt with nanobots and androids and reverie dream worlds, all to answer the question of what makes someone human. It also deals with the concept of war and peace, and where the line blurs between the two. I connected to the characters; all of them were fleshed out and I felt differently about almost all of them by the end as their motives revealed themselves. Ella was easy to connect to as she’s trying to take care of her mother after her father was killed by terrorists, and she’s plunged into the plot after trying to help her mother a bit more. Ella takes an active role in what’s going on around her, and trying to discover what’s the truth and what’s a lie. I especially felt her in the second half of the story. The romance feels a bit under baked; it could have been slowed down a bit more, though I understand in the small time frame and other factors, it sorta works. Though I was a bit disappointed that the narrative included the “romance=proof of life” cliche. The ending to me, while fitting and satisfying, felt incomplete to me. I wish there was a little more to it. If you’re looking for some fast paced Sci-Fi, this is a must! And I’ll take a look at Revis’ other works, including the Across the Universe series.

This book was pretty good, but not great. There certainly are several fun and interesting pieces to this story, things that really get you thinking. It's set in a time not too far from now, with fascinating futuristic bits woven into the world building, but a it's a world just as plagued with political strife as ever. Amid the androids and other technological wonders, conspiracies and government officials overreaching themselves keep this vision of the future from being anything close to a utopia. Despite the potential offered by these things, the story for me just fell short of being anything spectacular. It was fun enough to hold my interest, with the occasional truly compelling bits thrown into the mix, but in the end I have to say I probably wouldn't keep reading if there were to be more to the story, i.e. sequels.

I loved Beth Revis’ Across the Universe trilogy (please can we get some more YA in space? can that be the Next Big Thing?), so when The Body Electric came out, I bought it immediately. And I regret nothing, because it’s wonderful. I loved the futuristic world that Revis created. It’s filled with nanobots and androids but doesn’t feel like every other scifi book with nanobots and androids. They’re still fresh and interesting and I enjoyed learning about the world. I loved that it’s set in the Mediterranean rather than future US. This is a scifi YA with a kickass girl of color as the protagonist. I’m actually pretty sure that there are more people of color in this book than there are white people, so that’s awesome (it was similar in Across the Universe, actually, Beth Revis is great). I was also really into the romance aspect. It was there and it was swoon-worthy, but it didn’t overpower the plot and it didn’t define either Ella or Jack. It was part of their arcs and part of their characters, but it wasn’t everything, they didn’t drop their entire lives and beings for each other. Plus, Ella had other important relationships in her life, ones that often took precedence over Jack – her family and her best friend. I honestly don’t have much bad to say about The Body Electric. I thought it was incredibly fun and interesting, I loved the setting and the characters, and I think all y’all should read it ASAP.

This book has an intriguing premise. Nanobots are minuscule robots that control such processes as disease prevention and sharpening perception. This is a concept not new to dystopian literature, and it is usually dystopian and not hopeful literature that describes their use. As in every brave new world, the cost of such luxury is the surrender of freedom. Certainly as in the of decades of writers, this technology means the essential end of personal privacy. This novel combines this concept with that of the search for complete artificial intelligence, and it does so in the life of our narrator, Ella. She is surviving daughter of the genius of this science. She is an appealing voice with an unswerving sense of ethics and an unusual ability to enter other people's minds during her mother's trademark lucid dreaming service. The lucid dream, a controlled visit to one's best world of the past, is the gold standard in psychological services. It is in this technique that the novel's impetus leaves that of its similar relatives. I really liked the complexity of Ella's voice. The world building was done with a masterful touch as well. The technology of this future is beguiling. I didn't like the prolonged hunt and seek sequences, but I do not like these in any format. This may be a personal tic on my part. For me it weakens the web of the story when the intrigue is drawn too long in the mechanics of flight. Overall however, this is a book that I recommend. It held my interest and sparked some new thoughts which is a big part of what I demand from a novel.

I have wanted to read The Body Electric since the moment I saw its beautiful cover. It’s straight up badass. Anyway. Here’s the deal. Ella Shepherd has an ability to enter other’s minds through technology used in reverie chairs. She and her mother have a business where they offer this service to those who wish to relive pleasant memories. But when the government enlists Ella to use her gift to infiltrate a rebel force, she learns that nothing about her life is as it seems. And No! She’s not in the Labyrinth running from David Bowie’s goblin army. I was immediately drawn to the plot. Revis grabbed my heartstrings in the first few pages. This was me: Eye roll, sigh, toss book aside, fetch a packet of tissues, return to book, commence to reading. Ella’s loss is felt instantly and Revis doesn’t have to spell it out. You know it’s there, and you know it hurts. Crap! Spoilers! And what totally kills me is that Revis not only creates tons of inner turmoil for poor Ella, (trust, she’s got LOTS OF INNER TURMOIL) but she also has to contend with her mother’s illness. So, thanks for that Beth. But wait until you get to the part. The part that makes you go (insert gasping sound wordage) and be like whhaaa? For realz? Yeah. You will. But it’s for this reason that I totally adored Ella’s character. It brings the key element to the story that makes this book so freaking great. And, if you have any nerdage about you, you’ll find yourself teary eyed because robot feelings.

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. This review was originally posted on Such a Novel Idea. When Across the Universe came out, I had been back in the YA book reading game. The year before I had read the Hunger Games, which spurred a reading frenzy that has only grown to obsession since. But I remember being so fascinated by the book because it was a GORGEOUS cover and a SCI-FI book. And I ended up falling in love with the series. So when I saw Body Electric, I kinda flipped out. Here was a spin off and a series that meant so much to me. And man was it good! The book was very separate from the world we see in Across the Universe (because of circumstances…), but it had a great tie in. I absolutely loved the back story that Revis created for how our future in this universe comes to be. It was similar enough to still envision it, but different enough to know that this wasn’t the world we are seeing right now. I loved all the tech (nanobots are freakin awesome to think about!) and science fiction additions to the story. But beyond a future world’s gadgets, we see that humans never truly evolve from the threat of a corrupt government. I’ll admit it took me a bit to get into things, mainly because I was mourning over missing reading about Amy and Elder. I wasn’t sure about reading about Earth when there are so many cool things happening in space. But it didn’t take long for the fierce personality of Ella Shepherd to win me over. I love that Revis isn’t afraid to go there and get things done. People will be sacrificed and things are going to happen — it’s definitely not a YA book where things all work out nicely. This book got crazy and when things come to a head I found myself a little shocked at how they worked out. The foreshadowing is weaved throughout the story very nicely. Overall, this was a great standalone companion to a wonderful series. I love that the cover was created by a fellow blogger (go visit Hafsah at IceyBooks!) and that we got a little more out of this rich universe that Beth Revis imagined.

If you have read much scifi young adult lit in the past ten years, you can skip it. I loved Across the Universe for its originality. This one just bored me. What might have been innovative and exciting a few years ago just reads like fifteen other books that I've read before. I liked the world building, but genius kids uncovering and fighting corrupt government that is perverting scientific advancements for evil? And not a single adult notices or fights for a solution?