Dragonfly Girl

In this spellbinding thriller and YA debut from bestselling
author Marti Leimbach, Kira Adams has discovered a cure for death—and
it may just cost her life.

Things aren’t going well for Kira.
At home, she cares for her mother and fends off debt collectors. At school,
she’s awkward and shy. Plus, she may flunk out if she doesn’t stop obsessing
about science, her passion and the one thing she’s good at . . . very good
at.

When she wins a prestigious science
contest she draws the attention of the celebrated professor Dr. Gregory Munn
(as well as his handsome assistant), leading to a part-time job in a top-secret
laboratory.

The job is mostly cleaning floors
and equipment, but one night, while running her own experiment, she revives a
lab rat that has died in her care.

One minute it is dead, the next it
is not.

Suddenly she’s the remarkable
wunderkind, the girl who can bring back the dead. Everything is going her way.
But it turns out that science can be a dangerous business, and Kira is swept up
into a world of international rivalry with dark forces that threaten her
life.

interesting setting and character developement

some parts are just too... incredulous to get on board with. a loan shark is helping a cancer patient? I can't wrap my head around that. however, there is some lovely character relationship developments which is what kept me listening. while the writing left something to be desired, I am interested in seeing how this writer matures.

Spellbinding

Kira is a girl with grit & gumption. She lets her peers define her only to a point. Then she's gotten beyond them in ways they can never hope to understand. There is never any shortage of problems in her life, the kind of problems that are all-too-easy to understand. Some of her solutions leave me with my mouth hanging open. None is straightforward. Be not alarmed, though, that there is any corrupting tendency in this story, for even as Kira's doing something for which she could be hauled off to jail, she's maintaining a high standard of ethics and would make any parent incredibly proud of her.

As I listened to this work with its finely-drawn characters, I called to mind romances, friendships, & fond memories from my own life. Sometimes it had me laughing, but more often it had me crying. There is never a dull moment from start to finish.

I thought DG would end with a cliffhanger since I'd seen that there was to be a sequel, but actually it's more like a nice wide ledge on a mountain top. I'm looking very much forward to reading the sequel but can hobble along very well meantime.

sophisticated unique and full of science

Loved this so much! great depth in characters, complex storyline and an MC who is brilliant and still very much a young adult!