Jinxed by Amy McCulloch (review)

Twelve-year-old Lacey Chu dreams of being a cutting-edge companioneer, designing animal-like robots called bakus, and when she finds a nearly destroyed cat-like baku, she restores him to life. With baku Jinx by her side, she’s enrolled in a legendary robotics school and picked for its team of battle baku fighters, but she soon realizes that there’s more to Jinx than anyone notices; when he is suddenly stolen, Lacey puts everything at risk to save him. With plenty of appeal for any aspiring inventor or STEM enthusiast, this sci-fi adventure offers a novel approach to the robot-with-a-soul story that unfolds speedily alongside other genre tropes, like underground tinkers and corporate conspiracies. Lacey’s status as the talented but insecure underdog serves her well, placing readers firmly in her corner from the start, and she finds her perfect foil in the cheeky, mysterious Jinx. The school-story setting, meanwhile, allows for an understated diversity. The appealing smartphone-turned-pet invention at the story’s core makes up for otherwise unoriginal world building, and readers will cling to the edge of their seats as characters risk them in high-stakes battles royales. Final chapters offer intriguing reveals but no clear resolution, and the novel ends mid-action, so readers should be ready to hope for sequels.