It’s my stop with MTMC Tours to talk about DRAGONFLY GIRL by Marti Leimbach!
This is an absolutely spellbinding book, unique and thrilling and suspenseful. I flew through it without wanting to pause and honestly the ending leaves you really breathless. You will not predict what’s going to happen 😩🙌🏻in this book of science and the genius high school student who accidentally reverses death.
[WHAT GOES DOWN]
The story is about Kira, who is a science genius and….struggling. Her home life is stressful, her mother is sick and in deep debt, Kira feels alone and isolated at school due to being brilliant in some areas and failing in others. She’s misunderstood and weary trying to make ends meet. But then she wins a contest for her paper on dragonflies and flies to Sweden to receive the award. And this honestly catapults her life into TURMOIL, but also brilliance. No one knows she’s a high school student, but when the truth explodes out — they want her. The world is noticing her.
Add in science labs and secret experiments and Russians and academic rivalry (and harassment), and Dragonfly will literally send you spinning. It feels like a contemporary to start but quickly turns into the nail-biting thriller.
[WRITING STYLE]
I really loved the writing! It was so easy to fall into and very compelling. While there’s a lot of scientific passages and some jargon and I am…honestly clueless in that aspect 😂…I really enjoyed the science! Getting a peak in Kira’s genius mind was amazing.
[CHARACTERS]
Also can we talk about Kira 🥺👌🏻I loved her. She’s so anxious and timid at first, especially receiving her first award and feeling wrecked with terror that she’ll be busted as a precocious high school student. But the way her arc is full of power, or cleverness, of Kira surviving by sheer grit and wiles. She’s an easy protagonist to love — vulnerable but never arrogant, naive but never helpless.
I also really loved the side characters! Lauren, her BFF, who is fabulous and a fashionista and also a huge science geek. Dmitry, the chaotic genius science Kira meets while working for Munn, and he’s so lovely and sweet, but also dangerously clever. April, who loves the lab rats and cares for them. I won’t say I loved Munn (the old scientist with many secrets, but who believes in Kira from the start) but his character is fascinating.
And omg Will. I hate Will. He’s probably a very good representation of arrogant, manipulative young men in academia who believe “little girls” don’t belong there, and he so tactically bullied Kira the whole time. I was terrified he’d steal her work 😭He is so very complex though, so I did appreciate that.
[OVERALL]
I don’t want to say too much about where the plot goes, because the twists are fantastic and best to dive into alone so you get the full hit of the ending. It’s an addictive page-turner of teen geniuses and twisted morales and miracles and a girl who claims and chooses strength. I’m so glad I got to read this!!
Don’t forget to enter the INTL giveaway on my instagram too!
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.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads!
ABOUT MARTI LEIMBACH
Marti Leimbach is known for her bestsellers, Dying Young, made into a film starring Julia Roberts, and Daniel Isn’t Talking. She is interested in neurodiversity and has shared the stage with young inventors at the Human Genome Project (Toronto), the National Autistic Society, and the University of Oxford. Her interest in science influenced her YA thriller, Dragonfly Girl.
She teaches on the Masters Programme in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. Dragonfly Girl is her eighth novel, but her first for young adults. Find her at Website | Instagram | Goodreads | Twitter
I also designed a mug for one of my favourite quotes from the book!
MTMC TOURS Schedule
April 19
@paperfury – Boostagram + Book Blog
April 20
@the.word.traveler – Bookstagram
April 21
@thereaderandthechef – Bookstagram + Book Blog
April 22
@moonlight_rendezvous – Bookstagram
April 23
@celiamcmahonreads – Bookstagram + Book Blog
April 24
@jenniaahava – Bookstagram
April 25
@larasbookcase – Bookstagram + Book Blog
April 26
@starlight_and_blooms – Bookstagram
April 27
@readerincolors – Bookstagram + Book Blog
April 28
@dreaminginpages – Bookstagram
This book looks so cool! (And so does you mug lol why do I want to collect literally everything in your store)
A big big thank you for introducing to this incredible book I never heard of before, I’m definitely adding it to my TBR.
Loved your review! That mug design is absolutely STUNNING!!
The book sounds awesome and the quote design is so cool!