Earth Girl by Janet Edwards

Synopsis:
2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. While everyone else portals between worlds, 18-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can’t travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She’s an ‘ape’, a ‘throwback’, but this is one ape girl who won’t give in.

Jarra invents a fake background for herself – as a normal child of Military parents – and joins a class of norms that is on Earth to excavate the ruins of the old cities. When an ancient skyscraper collapses, burying another research team, Jarra’s role in their rescue puts her in the spotlight. No hiding at back of class now. To make life more complicated, she finds herself falling in love with one of her classmates – a norm from another planet. Somehow, she has to keep the deception going.

A freak solar storm strikes the atmosphere, and the class is ordered to portal off-world for safety – no problem for a real child of military parents, but fatal for Jarra. The storm is so bad that the crews of the orbiting solar arrays have to escape to planet below: the first landing from space in 600 years. And one is on collision course with their shelter.

My Thoughts:

Earth Girl was an incredible dystopian/science fiction adventure. Usually I hate science fiction, but I loved this book. The plot was great. It kept me turning pages to find out what happens next. When Jarra switched into her JMK personality after something horrific happened, I got a little bored. I didn't like her personality at all when she was JMK. The different slang words also took me a bit of time to figure out. Once I figured them out, they were easy to understand. I actually started using them in real life, which annoyed my friends immensely. I liked most of the characters. I didn't like Krath, because he was a jerk. Also, I didn't like the Betans, Lolmack and Lolia. They had crappy attitudes, and were very weak willed. They gained a little bit of my respect, but not much, when it was revealed why they were taking the course. The rest of the characters were great. I thought it was totally 'zan' that Fian had the same last name as me. I read it and let out a fan girl squee! Jarra, the main character was very kick-ass. She was handicapped but she didn't let that stop her. She went on to do some pretty amazing things. Things that no other Earth Girl has done. I couldn't get enough of this book. I'm really hoping that the author writes a sequel.

I give Earth Girl: 5/5

Want to know more about the author?
Website: http://janetedwards.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JanetEdwardsSF
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JanetEdwardsSF
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5415711.Janet_Edwards

I received this ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.