Review: Unremembered by Jessica Brody

Unremembered by Jessica Brody

Unremembered #1

Number of pages: 320

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux (BYR)

Source: NetGalley

GR - Amazon - BD - Chapters

When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe. Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. And no one can explain why her DNA and fingerprints can’t be found in a single database in the world. Crippled by a world she doesn’t know, plagued by abilities she doesn’t understand, and haunted by a looming threat she can’t remember, Seraphina struggles to piece together her forgotten past and discover who she really is. But with every clue only comes more questions. And she’s running out of time to answer them. Her only hope is a strangely alluring boy who claims to know her from before the crash. Who claims they were in love. But can she really trust him? And will he be able to protect her from the people who have been making her forget? From popular young adult author Jessica Brody comes a compelling and suspenseful new sci-fi series, set in a world where science knows no boundaries, memories are manipulated, and true love can never be forgotten.

I was quite excited to get my hands on Unremembered, as the premise sounded really interesting. Amnesia is not a new theme, but I liked the way Jessica Brody developed it in this book. The premise of Unrembered caught my attention. The mix of genres was really interesting. The thing is, I found this book to give me too many ‘what-the-heck’ moments, or scene that made me raise my eyebrow in wonder. The book lacked a certain depth, and I felt like I was dropped all the information, and the backstory, at once, instead of having it included through the story.

Violet/Seraphina appears first as a naive and lost girl, a girl with no memory of her past. The memory loss was nicely dealt with, and I could believe that Violet has no memory of her past. Once Violet “becomes” Seraphina once again, the dynamic of the story changes a little. With Zen, a boy from her past she loved, entering Seraphina’s life, the story goes into another direction. We are then introduced to the antagonist, and everything is suddenly revealed to us. That was something I wish had been done differently, as it felt all dumped on us. Where I found Sera an interesting character, Zen came short to me. I was expecting a love interest a little more captivating for Sera. I enjoyed seeing him with Sera, but I was expecting a little more. I know they were both already in love before she lost her memory, but I miss seeing the chemistry grow between those two. That was lacking a little for me.

I had read only one other book by Jessica Brody, and I enjoyed her writing. This book is no different. The writing makes it easy to get lost into the story, and to keep your attention in the story. She created an interesting story with a good ending.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel. It won’t make it to my list of favorites, but I found this book enjoyable. This book will charmed many readers and I’m really curious to see what will happen next in this series.

About the Author:

From GoodReads

Jessica Brody knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. She started self "publishing" her own books when she was seven years old, binding the pages together with cardboard, wallpaper samples and electrical tape.

After graduating from Smith College in 2001 where she double majored in Economics and French and minored in Japanese, Jessica later went on to work for MGM Studios as a Manager of Acquisitions and Business Development. In May of 2005, Jessica quit her job to follow her dream of becoming a published author.

In four short years, Jessica has sold nine novels (two adult novels to St. Martin's Press and seven young adult novels to Farrar, Straus, Giroux.) THE FIDELITY FILES, her debut, released in stores (in real binding) in June of 2008 and the the follow-up, LOVE UNDER COVER in November 2009. THE KARMA CLUB, Jessica's debut young adult novel released in April of 2010 and her second YA release, MY LIFE UNDECIDED just recently hit bookstores in June 2011.

52 REASONS TO HATE MY FATHER (which was recently optioned for film) will be out in Summer 2012 and UNREMEMBERED, (also optioned for film), the first book in a new teen sci-fi series, will be released in early 2013.

Jessica's books are published and translated in over twelve foreign countries including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Russia, Brazil, China, Portugal, Israel, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Jessica now works full time as a writer and producer. She currently splits her time between Los Angeles and Colorado.

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