Publisher: Penguin
Page Count: 311
**I was provided with an eArc from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!**
When I first heard about the book, I thought it sounded promising – mysterious even! I had never read a novel from the point of view of an amnesiac, so that was another thing that drew me towards wanting to read this particular story. However, Flora and I, we have a difficult relationship. But let’s start from the beginning!
Flora hasn’t been able to form new memories since she was 10 years old. She remembers people she met before that, but can’t hold on to anything new for more than a couple of hours. Now she is 17. Enter Drake! I did not like the guy. Right from the beginning there was something really sketchy about him. He was Paige’s, Flora’s best friend’s, boyfriend, yet on the day of his farewell party he kissed Flora and something miraculous happened – she remembered the whole encounter. Why do I think that’s wrong? Aside from the obvious reason that he was Flora’s best friend’s boyfriend, he also kissed a girl, who at that point, was mentally at the maturity level of a 10 year old. I get that she was in the body of a 17 year-old, but it still seemed off to me. Even though he leaves the next day, Flora begins obsessing about him and how he might be able to cure her. It all goes so far that she chases after him, by herself (!!!), to the arctic circle.
I am not going to go into detail on what happens in the story, because there are a couple of twists that would be a shame to spoil. Instead I want to talk more about Flora and her way of telling the story. First, I was not prepared for the level of repetitiveness. Of course I expected some of it, but I hoped for a bit more nuance, instead of the same phrases becoming a mantra that repeated itself every couple of pages. I very much recognise and respect that this is probably a very authentic portrayal of amnesia, however, I am afraid it did not add to the enjoyment of my reading experience. At some point I just skimmed paragraphs, simply because I had read the same sentence three times before.
Flora was such a fun and quirky character. As I said before she often felt pretty young, which made sense, and the next second she goes and books a flight and hotel for the Arctic. That’s pretty adult right there. Everyone in her life, be it strangers or family, was so understanding and willing to help. I don’t feel like that’s the most realistic portrayal, because even though it’s super nice of them, no one ever got impatient or frustrated with her, which is a miracle in my opinion. Her condition was often treated so lightly and the conclusion of the story was not something I entirely agreed with. I do believe that Flora is brave and unique and should get to make her own decisions and do the exciting things in life, but I don’t think she should be entirely unsupervised because she literally couldn’t remember where/why/when she was most of the time.
Lastly, I just want to say that I appreciate the portrayal of amnesia, seen as it is something that’s rarely done. I am sure many, many people will enjoy this book and Flora’s quirky character, I just didn’t happen to be one of them.
Fazit: 2.5/5 stars! Unfortunately it was not really my cup of tea …
Have you read TOMOFB? Are you going to? Let’s talk about that!
Shoot, sorry the repetitiveness bugged you so much. I’ve heard great things about this one, but that’s definitely something to keep in mind. 🙂
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I read a ton of great reviews before I requested it and therefore I don’t think that this book is bad in general. It probably just wasn’t for me.
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Sometimes that’s just how it goes. 😉
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Yep, it’s sad, but it does happen. I just really hope that it came across the right way in my review, because I do think that there are people who might like this.
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Great review Kat. I think you expressed your issues pretty damn well 🙂
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Thanks a lot! I didn’t want to spoil anything, so I left a couple things out, but I am glad the important points came across! 😀
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it did 🙂
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Great review! As I already told you, I think I’d get annoyed at this repetitive mantra after a while…but I really love stories dealing with amnesia, they make things so interesting in some books. I’m a bit sad to hear that it was also treated a bit lightly, maybe the book would have had more depth and be more interesting if everyone wasn’t so understanding and there were more struggles ? I feel like I’m looking for trouble here hahaha.
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Thanks, Marie! I hear you and maybe I was going into this book looking for the same kind of trouble. I do believe that there are a lot of people who would enjoy that book, but I just wasn’t one of them.
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Was it told from the first person? Because if it was, there’d be no way for the amnesia to be done properly, because the reader could just skip back to read things that Flora wouldn’t be able to remember…
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That’s first of all not how books are meant to be read, but secondly, not everything Flora couldn’t remember was in the book. And anyway, what does that have to do with the portrayal of amnesia if you can go back or not? It’s not like Flora could check hahaha
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I never expect it to be that way. ☹️
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I’ve heard so much about this book lately! I have no time to read for fun at the moment (too much homework ughhhh) so I’m going to live vicariously through you because you do seem to have time. 😊 Although it does suck when you spend that time reading a book you didn’t like…
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Hahaha be my guest! It took me forever to get through this book to be honest. I was just lucky with having a couple of reviews backlogged to post while I slowly, through the course of almost 2 weeks, made my way through this one. I hope to read more now though.
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This looks interesting, but at the same time kind of easy to say “Not my cup of tea” about either. Maybe pick it up if I see it at the library.
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So sorry I didn’t reply earlier. Your comment somehow landed in the spam and I didn’t see it
I definitely think it’s worth a try, especially if you don’t have to pay for it.
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Yikes, this does not sounds like my type of book. Just the fact that the girl kissed her best friend’s bf and chases after him out of the country? Hmm, not something I’d enjoy reading about.
I’m glad to hear the mc had a quirky personality though, that makes up for a bit of the plot! Nonetheless, I don’t think I would pick this one up (lol).
Awesome review!
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Thanks for checking out the review. I was so surprised that I didn’t like it, because most reviews on Goodreads (also from people I knew) were good, but I guess the book and I just didn’t belong with each other.
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[…] The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr (2.5 stars) […]
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