Review: The Body Electric by Beth Revis

Summary:

The future world is at peace.

Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift—the ability to enter people’s dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother—to help others relive their happy memories.

But not all is at it seems.

Ella starts seeing impossible things—images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience—and influence—the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love—even though Ella’s never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…

Someone’s altered her memory.

Ella’s gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn’t even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella’s head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.

So who can she trust?

Publication Date: October 6, 2014

I liked the author’s bestseller Across the Universe, but didn’t love the book as much as I hoped. That being said, I really enjoyed The Body Electric. I don’t know why, but I felt such a stronger connection to the characters than I had in her previous works.

The Body Electric is a companion work to Across the Universe, but can be enjoyed as a standalone. There are some mentions of the plotlines from the previous books, but this novel is more about what happens back on Earth while the spaceship is traveling.

I liked Ella a lot. She felt so very real to me. Revis wrote in her way where I felt every emotion as Ella experienced them. She is living in this fast-changing world while also having to deal with so much grief. Ella’s dedication to her mother touched me the most out of all the story elements. However I did also enjoy the romance in the book immensely.

I felt more suspense in this novel too and I loved some of the twists the authors threw in the final chapters. The pace was very fast, so my only complaint was it was hard to keep up at times when a whole new plot device was tossed in the mix. However, I did really like the book and would recommend it to readers of sci-fi lite books. The book is YA, but I felt like it had plenty of crossover appeal.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the novel for review!