A story about identity, courage and searching for the truth of who you are.
This book made me cry, it made me feel, it made me think and it made me want to read on. Emma Young brings us a whole new take on the issue of identity and body image. The idea of waking up with a completely different body was incredibly thought provoking, from looking at a different face in the mirror to discovering new freckles, the shape of your knuckles and the fall of your hair. After years of being trapped in a body slowly dying of a nerve disease, Rosa is offered an experimental brain transplant and given the chance to live. Yet as she struggles to come to terms with her new body she begins to question who she is and if she even deserves this healthy, able body when the girl who it belonged to is dead. She is told very little about her donor Sylvia, yet she knows she was young, pretty and a girl who seemingly had everything to live for and yet whose body has given her, Rosa, the chance to live. Soon Rosa becomes obsessed with finding out more about Sylvia and who she was. As Rosa embarks on a journey to discover who Sylvia was, can she find a way to rediscover and accept herself? ~ Shelley Fallows- You can also find Shelley here.
Her body is intact, but her brain is dead. I have essentially the opposite problem. Eighteen-year-old Rosa is on the verge of the greatest change of her life. Her nerve disease is slowly killing her, so when a doctor from Boston chooses her as a candidate for an experimental brain transplant, she and her family move from London in search of a miracle. Sylvia - a girl from Massachusetts - is brain dead after having fallen into a frozen lake and her parents have agreed to donate her body to give Rosa a new life. It's Rosa's only chance of life but as the operation draws near she obsesses over the idea of what it will feel like to be a real life Frankenstein. The operation is followed by months of rehabilitation. Longing to escape the confines of the hospital, Rosa escapes to the hospital park, where she meets Joe. As they start to fall in love Rosa is haunted by the idea that he doesn't see her for who she is. When Joe offers to drive her anywhere she needs, they head towards the frozen lake. Can Rosa find closure, and figure out who she really is?
Emma Young is a writer on science and technology for children and is Australian editor for the New Scientist magazine. Her first two children’s books, The Astronaut's Survival Guide and The Spy's Survival Guide were published by Penguin. She is also the author of the Storm. series. Emma lives in Sheffield.
