Friday 21 April 2017

Review - The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr




Title: The One Memory of Flora Banks
Author: Emily Barr
Pages: 311
Publisher: Penguin
Release date: 12th December 2016

Blurb from Goodreads:
 
Seventeen-year-old Flora Banks has no short-term memory. Her mind resets itself several times a day, and has since the age of ten, when the tumor that was removed from Flora's brain took with it her ability to make new memories. That is, until she kisses Drake, her best friend's boyfriend, the night before he leaves town. Miraculously, this one memory breaks through Flora's fractured mind, and sticks. Flora is convinced that Drake is responsible for restoring her memory and making her whole again. So when an encouraging email from Drake suggests she meet him on the other side of the world, Flora knows with certainty that this is the first step toward reclaiming her life.

With little more than the words "be brave" inked into her skin, and written reminders of who she is and why her memory is so limited, Flora sets off on an impossible journey to Svalbard, Norway, the land of the midnight sun, determined to find Drake. But from the moment she arrives in the arctic, nothing is quite as it seems, and Flora must "be brave" if she is ever to learn the truth about herself, and to make it safely home.








My Review:

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Penguin Random House UK Children's and NetGalley*




 Flora Banks is a seventeen-year-old girl who has no short-term memory - the result of a tumour that was removed when she was ten.
But then she kisses Drake at his leaving party and remembers it.
Determined that Drake is the key to restoring her memory, a series of events lead to Flora embarking on a journey to Svalbard where Drake has moved.
Can Flora find Drake with only her notebooks and the writing on her hands to help her?
Will Flora's memory be restored?
Can she have a normal life?


I have mixed feelings about The One Memory of Flora Banks.
On the one hand it was interesting to have a protagonist who couldn't remember everything - talk about an unreliable main character.
However, while I did like Flora and felt sorry for her, I found her naivety annoying at times but it was understandable that she would be childlike given the memory loss after the tumour.
There also wasn't much of a plot - not much happened and things took longer to happen because of Flora's memory loss.
While the idea for this book was interesting and unique, I didn't connect with it.


Overall this was an okay read.


 

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