Common Sense Media Review
By Andrea Beach
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Entertaining space-travel adventure fine for young teens.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
At 16 or 17 years old, Cade lives alone on an alien planet sometime in the 3120s. Earth was destroyed long ago, and the human race is scattered around the universe. Cade receives a holographic message explaining that instead of being an orphan as she always thought, she was created in a lab as part of an experiment to save the human race. There, she was entangled at the quantum level with another baby, a boy named Xan. Xan has been in a coma for 15 years, but now that he's awake Cade immediately senses their bond. To save Xan from the Unmakers, who want to destroy all the survivors of the quantum experiment, Cade has to enlist the help of a motley spaceship crew who become her loyal allies. The future of humanity depends on what will happen when, and if, Cade and Xan can be reunited.
Is It Any Good?
With ENTANGLED, author Amy Rose Capetta creates realistic characters in a believable, far-future world without bogging the story down in the quantum-theory backdrop. Capetta's able narrative skills keep the world feeling alien but not alienating. Readers new to the genre will have no difficulty understanding the wheres and whys of the universe heroine Cade inhabits, and sci-fi fans will feel at home with many classic elements. The solid debut is paced well with a few action or peril sequences punctuating the space-travel adventure.
Readers are kept firmly in their seats by a mission that's not about saving an endangered human race as much as it's about hoping to unite humanity someday in the future. Heroine Cade's slow journey away from self-absorption make her hard to really root for, but the well-developed secondary characters are entertaining. The ending satisfies while leaving room for the planned sequel, Unmade.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about science fiction. Why is it so popular now? What can sci-fi stories tell us about who we are and where we're headed?
Do you think the future envisioned in Entangled is realistic? Will humans end up scattered throughout the universe with no Earth to return to?
Why do you think the author included definitons at the beginning of each chapter? Did they help you understand the story, or were they confusing?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Science Fiction
- Topics : Friendship
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Publication date : October 1, 2013
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 14 - 17
- Number of pages : 336
- Available on : Nook, Hardback, Kindle
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
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