"Enhanced"

Carrie Jones is the New York Times bestseller author of the Need series, Time Stoppers series, Flying series, Girl, Hero, Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend, and Love (and other uses for duct tape).

Jones applied the Page 69 Test to  her new book, Enhanced: Flying Series (Volume 2), and reported the following:

From page 69:

Lyle.

My food doesn’t come across as appetizing, all of a sudden.

“Don’t mind her. She just lost her boyfriend,” China explains, motioning for Wharff to sit down and then making a motion for the server to come back to the table.

“Did they take him?” Wharff asks, swallowing the chair with his bulk.

“Take him?” I ask.

“Abduct him,” Wharff explains, grabbing a napkin and daintily spreading it across his lap.

I almost choke on my shake. “No.”

“Dead?” His eyes meet mine. The pupils are a bit wobbly. They jump around.

“No! He just — He just — ah...”

“He dumped her,” China explains for me in his lovely tactful way. “Or maybe not. I’m not a hundred percent convinced it was actually him. Or that it was an actual breakup. Or that they were technically dating.”

I stare at my food, somehow losing my appetite even more. “It was him.”

Wharff sips his water. All his actions seem slow and deliberate. “He is a fool then.”

“I’ve always said that,” China agrees.

“I’m not cool with talking about him when he’s not here,” I say. "It’s mean.”

“He dumps her and she’s worried about being mean? When he can’t even hear it?” Wharff places his glass on the table again, delicately. “That’s a whole lot of kindness in one person.”

“Too much, if you ask me,” China grumps.

This test is somewhat terrifying, but thank you so much for having me face my writer fears. The excerpt shows Mana’s awkwardness and confusion about what is going on with her friends’ behavior and more general confusion about what’s happening in her now topsy-turvy world where she suddenly has to deal with the reality of extraterrestrials and their place on the earth. This mirrors the journey of youths into the world of adulthood, and that need to find place and purpose in an ever-changing reality that becomes more complex as we gain knowledge and experience. At the same time, we get a glimpse of the dynamics of Mana and China, and her place as a young woman in a violent world.

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My Book, The Movie: Enhanced.

--Marshal Zeringue