Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

Simon Doyle’s The Second Life of Jameson Duggins follows sixteen-year-old William Theodore Fletcher, known as Theo to his best friend Jamie Duggins, after a hiking accident on Slieve League leaves Jamie dead and Theo seriously injured. Theo is an engineering prodigy living with his psychiatrist mother in the home once shared with his late father, bioengineer Dr Jonathon Fletcher. When Jamie’s parents bring over an old recording device from a science-club project, Theo remembers the Human Interface Module they built from Jamie’s voice samples and mapped thought patterns. A forgotten backup still exists in his father’s basement laboratory, and switching it on gives Theo something impossible when Jamie answers him. Then Colonel Fredrick Buck, who says he was Jonathon’s old friend, arrives asking questions about the scientist’s unfinished research.

Simon Doyle gets it right in The Second Life of Jameson Duggins with Theo himself. His engineering mind is baked into his character, giving the mechanical details playful intelligence that belongs to him. You can see it in the modified robovac, which announces “Nom, nom, sock” after collecting an item. The homemade technology has ingenuity, shown when an old shortbread tin becomes part of a charging system. Theo’s thinking remains convincing beyond the lab as well, with a long walk turning power use into another calculation. That sense of character extends to Big Jock, my favorite supporting character. His blunt offer of protection at Theo’s lunch table tells you plenty about the huge Scottish student in one moment. The most creative story element is the digital Jamie, whose dry observations make the Human Interface Module sound unmistakably like Theo’s best friend. All the friendships give the science fiction a human quality that feels at home beside Theo’s inventions. I recommend this wholeheartedly to readers drawn to well-written and entertaining young adult science fiction. Very highly recommended.