Earth Girl

It's 2788 and only the handicapped live on Earth. Eighteen-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can't travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She's an ape, a throwback, but this is one ape girl who won't give in. Jarra makes up a fake military background for herself and joins a class of norms who are on Earth for a year of practical history studies excavating the dangerous ruins of the old cities. She wants to see their faces when they find out they've been fooled into thinking an ape girl was a norm. She isn't expecting to make friends with the enemy, to risk her life to save norms, or to fall in love.

Eighteen-year-old Jarra has a lot to prove. After being awarded one of the military's highest honors for her role in a daring rescue attempt, she finds herself-and her Ape status-in the spotlight. Jarra is one of the unlucky few born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Derided as an "ape"-a "throwback"-by the rest of the universe, she is on a mission to prove that Earth Girls are just as good as anyone else. Except now the planet she loves is under threat by what could be humanity's first-ever alien contact. Jarra's bravery-and specialist knowledge-will once again be at the center of the maelstrom, but will the rest of the universe consider Earth worth fighting for?

Jarra never wanted to be a celebrity. All she ever wanted was to gain some respect for the people left on Earth: the unlucky few whose immune system prevents them from portaling to other planets. Except now she's the most famous Earth girl in the universe-but not everyone in the universe is happy about it, nor the fact that she has found love with a norm. Jarra's actions have repercussions that spread further than she ever could have imagined, and political unrest threatens to tear apart the delicate balance of peace between humanity's worlds. On top of everything, the first alien artifact ever discovered appears to be waiting for Jarra to reveal its secrets. But to do so, she must somehow find a way to leave Earth-or else the alien artifact will be lost forever. Is there a way for Jarra to travel to another planet? Or is her destiny only to look to the stars-but never to reach them?