Synopsis
Lia Kahn was perfect: rich, beautiful, popular until the accident that nearly killed her. Now she has been downloaded into a new body that only looks human. Lia will never feel pain again, she will never age, and she can’t ever truly die. But she is also rejected by her friends, betrayed by her boyfriend, and alienated from her old life.
Forced to the fringes of society, Lia joins others like her. But they are looked at as freaks. They are hated...and feared. They are everything but human, and according to most people, this is the ultimate crime for which they must pay the ultimate price.
The first book in a gripping series
KLIATT
It's about 100 years in the future. The story begins as a once-beautiful teenager lies in a coma after a car accident. Then Lia's body is left behind in a trash morgue, she is given a new, manufactured body, and the contents of her brain are downloaded into this new body. Is this Lia? What is a human? Now she will never die because when her body wears out, the contents of her brain can be downloaded and she can start again. Unfortunately, there was not time to build her a body that looks like her old organic body, so they had to pick an approximate fit. This means that Lia looks in the mirror and sees a stranger, but she still has the thoughts and feelings of her previously all-organic self. This new person doesn't need to eat or sweat or pee. For sleep, she just shuts down, like a computer going into sleep mode. As the story continues, we find out what the ramifications of such technology are. For a start, most humans are still in the mortal, organic, vulnerable state, so they resent "skinners" for many reasons. Lia's never happy sister, always envious, is now even more resentful. Lia's old boyfriend can't handle this at all. So Lia takes up company with others like her, but when they interact with organic humans, only dreadful complications result: mostly emotional ones. This is an intelligent science fiction story for older YAs. It relates to their knowledge of computers and videos and electronic games, to their shopping habits, to their fierce obsessions with physical appearance. Wasserman does a fine job. Reviewer: Claire Rosser