When Cora’s brother drags her along to his boss’s house, she doesn’t expect to strike up a friendship with Adrian, son of the intimidating CEO of Pomegranate Technologies. As she becomes part of Adrian’s life, she is also drawn into the mysterious projects at Pomegranate.
At first, she is intrigued by them – Pomegranate is using Al to recreate real people in hologram form. As she digs deeper, however, she uncovers darker secrets… Cora knows she must unravel their plans, but can she fight to make her voice heard, whilst never losing sight of herself?
Genre: Children and Teenage/ Fiction/ Middle Grade
Age appropriate: 12+
Number of Pages: 328 pages
Date of Publication: 04/03/2021
Author/Illustrator/Publisher:
The author is Elle McNicoll a neurodivergent Scottish writer. Her first children’s novel was A Kind of Spark. The beautiful cover was created by Kay Wilson an illustrator with ADHD who creates bright and eye catching artwork.
Published by KO Knights of.
Rating: 5/5
Review:
Another extraordinary book from Elle McNicoll. Show us who you are is the story of Cora who is autistic and struggles to fit it no matter how much she tries to mask who she really is. She meets Adrian at a party and he straight away knew that they were going to become best friends.
Having a main character who is on the spectrum and another one with ADHD is great for inclusivity and breaks a lot of stereotypes and I loved this element. We learn how they really feel and how hard it is for them to mask their emotions and to try and anticipate how people will react to certain situations. While Adrian accepts who he is and loves spending time learning about topics that he enjoys, Cora tries really hard to fit into society. Both of them learn great lessons from each other and their friendship is like no others I’ve seen in fiction.
The plot of the book is very original as the story takes place at Pomegranate an institution that is working on making holograms so people would be able to always be with their love ones, even after their death. Cora our main protagonist loves the idea of the holograms but soon she discovers that there is more to the technology than just a nice concept. This story also has an excellent villain which brings a perfect balance to the narrative.
There are so many amazing messages for children but one of them is how everyone’s mind is different and everyone is capable of different things.
This is an excellent book for younger readers and adults.
Availability: The book is available in all good bookshops.
Shelf Life 
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