Frozen

A brilliant repackage of the first book in a richly layered dystopian trilogy Scott Westerfeld called "A spell-binding story about loss, rebirth, and finding out who we really are inside." A horrible accident has severed Lia's spine, crushed her legs, and destroyed her internal organs...but her brain has been left intact. Before, she would have died. But her parents are wealthy and her doctors are cutting edge. And this is not before.

Lia wakes up in a body that is not a body. It's a machine, designed to look and feel human. She need never feel pain again. She will never age. And as long as she is vigilant about backing up her memories, she need never die. Lia is one of the "mechanicals" or "mechs" now--a group of people who this new technology has been experimented on. This group includes the sick, the injured, the disabled children of the wealthy, and "volunteers" from the streets. No one sane, it's assumed, would give up their body for a mechanical shell--unless they had no other choice.

Lia tries to return to her own life, but nothing is the same. Her friends and her boyfriend--the "organics" or "orgs"--turn their backs on her, and even her own family can't seem to understand that underneath it all, she's still the same person. Or is she? Drawn into a group of "mechs", she sees the limitless options of her new "body"--after all, there's nothing stopping them from doing whatever they want.

But there are some "orgs" who would like to see the new technology vanish, and the mechs along with it. Can you be human without a body? Is it murder to "kill" a machine? Or are you simply "shutting it down" for the greater good?