ELECTRIC TITAN | Kirkus Reviews

A disabled teenage girl must harness her emerging telekinetic powers to counter an oncoming meteor in Reardon’s YA SF novel.

Seventeen-year-old Rosa Viviani can no longer do activities such as climb the staircase to her house or walk along the lakeshore with her father since she suffered an accident while participating in Convalor, a racing-themed celebration on her planet Titan, which put her in a hoverchair. One day, she feels a tingling in her arm; a Faberge egg (an heirloom belonging to a disabled ancestor) falls from her dresser, and an announcement pops up on her “tabicus”: A meteor is coming to Titan, and, if not stopped, it will destroy Titan in six days. The narrative then proceeds with a six-day countdown, interspersed with chapters touching on Rosa’s life before and after her accident.  A highlight of Rosa’s post-accident experience is a growing closeness with classmate Cordelia, who doesn’t treat Rosa’s disability with pity, as do many around her, including a now-discarded boyfriend. Rosa also studies Wicca, does tarot readings for classmates, and often meditates her way to an “astral temple” where goddesses (some with physical disabilities, some invisible) engage her in dialogue about choice, free will, and, ultimately, the mentally moving objects ability that she now appears to have. Early in the countdown period, Rosa is approached by scientists who have covertly witnessed her unusual skills who want to see if they can be leveraged to fend off the meteor. By novel’s end, despite some setbacks and a heartbreaking loss, Rosa ends up transforming herself and her world.

Reardon, who shares in his “About the Author” note that he is “a brain tumor survivor since the age of 8, and handicapped since the age of 10,” offers insightful commentary and perspectives about disability through the journey of his teen protagonist. Readers learn about Rosa’s post-accident suicide attempt, frustration with and empathy for her ableist parents (“Hopefully, they would evolve. My new life was new for them, too”), and eventual epiphany that “Being in a hoverchair is only part of who you are. Once you realize that, no meteor could ever stop you.” This last comment is made by an astral temple deity in one of the goddess sequences—these scenes are an element of the book that can get somewhat esoteric. (Another goddess, for example, remarks that Rosa is “the one who will bring neo-collectivism to Titan.”) Nevertheless, these conversations showcase Rosa’s intelligence and psychological makeup (supportive, strong Cordelia, a lovely secondary character, astutely suggests that “The goddesses come from your subconscious, right?”). The nonchronological structure of the narrative is at times frustrating; some of the flashback chapters are not as compelling as the looming present-day threat. The way in which Rosa came to be in the apparently now-novel (on Titan) circumstance of being disabled is also withheld until late in the novel and then explained rather hazily (the injury at Convalor is left murky, with the medical operation afterward seemingly responsible for the hoverchair issue). Still, Reardon creates a fascinating future world in which Rosa must draw on some “old” tech to save the day, and her mother, an “animac,” contemplates the disquieting knowledge that her battery life will outlast the lifespan of Rosa’s father.

An intense examination of life, love, and disability through a futuristic lens.