Review: The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr

Title: The One Memory of Flora Banks
Author: Emily Barr
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: January 12th 2017
Pages: 303 (paperback)
Source: Netgalley

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. 

Goodreads

I read The One Memory of Flora Banks right after I had finished another book that dealt with memory loss. Maybe I should not have done that since now I could not help stop myself comparing both books even though they dealt with two completely different types of memory loss.

I have to say I don’t think I have read a book before that is similar to this one. Flora suffers from amnesia and a couple of times a day her mind resets itself. Therefore she still sees herself as a young child since those are the last real memories she has. But then one day she kisses a boy and she remembers. And this moment is a start of an adventure for Flora.

There were a couple of things about this book that I did not like that much about this book. One of the things was that it was pretty repetitive a lot of the time. I get that the main character suffered from amnesia but some parts of the book were a copy and paste of events that had happened before. Not even a word had changed and that is something that I could not deal with.  I do understand that somethings had to be repeated since Flora forgot everything but the author could have done it in a more adventurous way I guess. Another reason why this book was not really for me was because I just could not wrap my head around it that a kiss from the boy is the only thing she remembered in years and that after that happened nothing else changed in regards to her mental health.

One of the only things that I truly enjoyed about this book was the adventure. Flora embarked on an adventure that took her to some really wonderful places. And the people she met along the way were fun enough to read about. But I think I would have enjoyed it more if her adventure had not been all about finding the boy she kissed. I believe that this book could have done so much better if it hadn’t centered so much around romance.

Overall this book was just not for me. I can see why some people enjoy it but for me it was just too unrealistic in a lot of ways. And a book that tackles a concept like amnesia should not be unrealistic in my opinion. 

Elien