Book Title : The One Memory of Flora Banks
Book Author : Emily Barr
My Rating : ⭐️⭐⭐️/5
Publication Date : January 12th 2017
This is one of those reads where I feel it would be hard to review and/or to recommend.
I think I’ll just write two paragraphs, one with what I liked and another with what I didn’t like. It’s then up to you to weigh and contemplate between both to decide if it’s worth picking up.
But let’s talk about Flora Banks first. She is seventeen with a limited memory. Meaning she can only remember events up to her 10th birthday – due to a tumor in her brain that required a surgery to remove – and her brain cannot make or restore any new memories since then.
That is until she kisses a boy, Drake, the night before he leaves town and she can actually remember it the next morning. Convinced that she’s on her way to recovery – and he’s somewhat responsible – she sets her mind to follow him to the Arctic and thus a journey of love, life, and self-discovery begins.
I absolutely loved the concept and the strongly delivered message behind the book. It was a very motivational story that makes you believe you can conquer just about anything regardless of any self doubt or disability. Flora herself was an easy person to love. She is sweet, funny and a strong person who shares an exceptionally amazing bond with her family and anyone she just meets.
Having praised it, my “buts” lies with the writing style. It was too simple for my taste. I know it’s somewhat narrated with what we are led to believe inside the mind of a ten-year-old who’s supposed to act and speak like a seventeen-year-old but still, it just didn’t work for me. In addition to that, our protagonist suffers from Amnesia, so we get to experience with her the struggle to remember people and certain events, which is repeated throughout the whole book that could get a tad bit frustrating. Actually make it whole lot frustrating.
So now I’m asking you, would you pick it up?
Thank you @penguinukbooks for sending me this book in an exchange for an honest review.
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