Adaptation

Adaptation Series, Book 1

By: Malinda Lo

Narrated by: Melissa Moran

Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Among them are Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David, who are in Arizona when the disaster occurs. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway in the middle of the Nevada night, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won't tell them what happened, where they are - or how they've been miraculously healed.

Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction - and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

©2012 Malinda Lo (P)2021 Tantor

Alien component is a side story, to sexual orientation discovery.

The author has an interesting alien first contact concept, however, it was not fleshed out. The ending "explains" the first alien contact and odd happenings in the president's last address. There was very little character development, other than the protagonist determining her sexual orientation. I am not a homophobe nor a prude, however, I do not read smut and skip over sex scenes, regardless of sexual orientation. Upon finishing the book my first thought was... It is no wonder that young people are so confused! I would not recommend this book, especially if you are looking for first contact SciFi.

The relationship between the characters and the openness of a sexual identity

I enjoy the intrigue of the first half. Not knowing what was happening, the mysterious, super powers developing slowly. Enjoyed the appearance of Amber and the mystery of who she was. The second half was a little disappointing and lacked substance. It felt like the ending was more of a set up for future now it is and not strong as a standalone piece. they involve another government and the ease with which everything just cleanly resolved, was not too believable

Good Book, Bad Narrator

This was a good book. Very enjoyable story. But the narrator made some questionable voice choices. For instance, the narrator gave the female love interest a mocking, almost ridiculing tone toward the main character throughout the entire book. I couldn’t figure out why Reese even liked her with that tone. Interestingly enough, none of the male characters were treated like that.