Reading a book about the effects of a plague during an actual plague is kind of surreal, and the author noted the dissidence when introducing the piece. Other than this Cleo Porter vs the the Body Electric was a wonderful piece about pandemics, the dangers of relying on technology and the force of the human spirit.
Summary
A woman is dying. Cleo Porter has her medicine. And no way to deliver it.
Like everyone else, twelve-year-old Cleo and her parents are sealed in an apartment without windows or doors. They never leave. They never get visitors. Their food is dropped off by drones. So they’re safe. Safe from the disease that nearly wiped humans from the earth. Safe from everything. The trade-off?
They’re alone. Thus, when they receive a package clearly meant for someone else–a package containing a substance critical for a stranger’s survival–Cleo is stuck. As a surgeon-in-training, she knows the clock is ticking. But people don’t leave their units.
Not ever. Until now. In a race to treat her patient she will go on the adventure of a lifetime and learn things she never imagined.
Review of Cleo Porter and the Body Electric
The solution to this book, is one you can easily see coming about, and that’s what makes the book hit a note of realism that is almost scary. I also love the two people living outside the cubes, Agnes teaches our protagonist a lot of things she would have never learned in the cube, and the outside world grow on her because of it. I think it’s also important to point out how hard it was to get out of the cube, and the failure of Paige’s cube, and how that could be important in the future. Like Agnes said they may be locking themselves in for trouble if something bad happens.