2013 young adult science fiction, sequel to Earth Girl. Jarra is
Handicapped, unable to leave Earth for any of the colony worlds where
most of society now happens, but after a daring rescue she's a hero.
Now her archaeological and historical skills will be tested in an
entirely new field.
Obviously there continues to be a strong disability metaphor
here, as various "normal" people regard Jarra as a "dirty ape", her
boyfriend's parents object to his lumbering himself with her, and so
on, while she continues to make the best of life. It's pretty well set
up: yes, there are huge and genuine disadvantages to Jarra's status,
but it very obviously doesn't make her stupid or incompetent.
On the other hand in this book it does sometimes feel as though
everything good falls into Jarra's hands without much effort. She's
drafted into the Military, her dream job ever since she found about
her family background, and quickly promoted to senior officer even
though she's still a teenager who's never even had basic training. The
extended family she came from wants to adopt her into it. She has a
hugely famous ancestor. Her boyfriend Fian puts up with all her
fantods, and never has any of his own. The only people who make any
fuss about her being Handicapped are clearly Bad People and are
quickly recognised as such by everyone else. She comes up with an
out-of-the-blue solution to one of the main problems confronting
Earth, which turns out to be correct, and so ends up in charge of
dealing with that problem.
So yes, she's unreasonably lucky, and the writer is visibly on her
side. On the other hand that's almost background to the important
stuff, as Jarra's main challenges are internal: post-traumatic fears,
and an inability to discuss problems even though everyone in the world
wants to help her. In the first she went a bit mad, and that was very
well-drawn; here she overcomes a crippling fear by wishing really
really hard that it won't be a problem. Um. Well. OK, I suppose.
It's still not a bad book, because Edwards writes extremely well, and
the world-building is distinctly interesting. But this was for me a
bit of a step down from the first one.
Recommended by Colin Fine. Followed
by Earth Flight.
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