Unremembered by Jessica BrodySeries: Unremembered #1
Published by: Farrar Straus and Giroux on March 5, 2013
Genre: Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction
Pages: 320
Source: NetGalley
Buy on Amazon • Book Details
Rating: ★★★★
The only thing worse than forgetting her past... is remembering it.
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 mesmerizing and suspenseful new series, set in a world where science knows no boundaries, memories are manipulated, and true love can never be forgotten.
Unremembered has everything I love in a sci-fi: genetics, evil corporations, love, technology, and conspiracy. It’s almost like it was made for me! However, I have to warn you. This story isn’t exactly original. It’s awesome, and I loved it, but it is one of those things that has been done many, many times. It just so happens to be a “cookie cutter” that I adore, so it didn’t bother me in the slightest. But if that WOULD bother you, then this book is not for you.
However, despite my love for this book, it wasn’t perfect. And I’ll address some of the frustrating things first:
The first ~35% of the book is clouded in mystery as the girl—Seraphina—attempts to answer all of the questions in the blurb. Why wasn’t she on the manifest? Was she actually on the plane? Why aren’t her fingerprints and DNA in any of the databases? This was the first frustrating thing for me, because I thought the answer was obvious, but we don’t get the reveal until the 35% mark. I honestly already had a good idea of what the ‘secret’ was from the synopsis alone. Now, that doesn’t mean the beginning was terribly boring or painful for me to read, but I did get frustrated at times because it felt like it took her AGES to figure it out.
My one other problem is with the romance. I wanted to love the romance, and there was definitely potential there, but I didn’t; I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t love it. The problem is that memory loss aside, Seraphina and Zen are already in love when the story begins. This is just a universal thing for me: I can’t love a romance if I don’t see it develop from the beginning. If you don’t have that problem, then you might love this romance! But as much as I tried, I just didn’t connect to it fully. Zen is totally a sweet character, and with more development I think I could have really loved the romance, but it just wasn’t all there for me. There are some flashbacks to help us relive the beginning of the romance, but again, it just wasn’t quite enough to get me to love it.
Okay, moving on! Overall, I adored this book. It is super action-packed and there are loads of twists and turns. There is one twist in particular that I feel like I’m a bit stupid for not having seen coming, but OMG it blew me away and I LOVED it!! Towards the end, it was a bit of a mindfuck at times, but that’s one of the things that really drew me in. I love a complex story that can be so baffling that you need to take a time out to process it.
Unremembered also has a great ending. This is the first book in the series, so there is still an opening for it to be continued, but things do get wrapped up super nicely and there’s not much of a cliffhanger. And despite my lack of enthusiasm for the romance, the ending still had me Awww‘ing!
I kind of feel like I’m not saying enough with this review, but the problem is that all the juicy bits are spoilers! There’s so much that I want to say, but I can’t say it because I don’t want to ruin the story for anyone. This book is almost like putting together a puzzle. There are so many pieces that Seraphina picks up along the way, but then everything at the end comes together beautifully to form an overall picture that finally makes sense. Even the small details that you thought you had figured out, suddenly come into focus even more at the end.
If it doesn’t bother you that this plot has “been done before” (click the spoiler tag to see what I mean. It is sort of a spoiler, but it gets revealed at the 35% mark—so not that far in) Seraphina was actually “created” in a lab. She is a genetically enhanced human/robot combination. The corporation who created her intended for her to be the ‘perfect’ human and she escaped from their facility. Now they’re after her to get their trillion dollar project back. then I highly recommend this book! It’s a great story and will definitely keep you engaged!
The Verdict
Awesome review. I can’t wait for it to be out this week. It is one that I have been waiting on for what seem like forever. 🙂
Jenea @ Books Live Forever
You got me at conspiracy. This is actually on my TBR pile. 😀
I’m sorry about the romance. I’m also not a fan of “flashback romances.”
Meep I hope you love it JoAnn! I can’t wait to read your review. 😀
Great review as always, Ashley. I’m like you, I just can’t get with the romance if I wasn’t there from the beginning, I just feel like it’s not as believable.
Ha!!! so happy to see you also loved it so much!! Soo many twist and turns it was an amazing ride! And yes there were some twist I also thought I should have seen coming, but didn’t… Do you refer to the one “who is Seraphina?” because.. this one I totally didn’t expect at all!
***SPOILERS***
I was surprised by the whole time travel thing! That one maybe should have been obvious but I totally didn’t expect it LOL!
Wow, this does sound good. I don’t mind cookie-cutter books as long as their my fav type of books, but as you know Sci-Fi is a small part of what I read. But I still like the sound of this one. But I agree, I hate books with the couple already together.
Yeah other than the romance it was a pretty great read. I’m not totally sure if it would be up your alley though. It’s kind of hard to tell!
That’s so interesting, that you can only connect with a romance if you witness it from the beginning! I’m almost completely opposite; I LIKE it when the romance is already pre-existing, since the romance aspect is less likely to take over the plot.
It’s good to know this book is a bit of a cookie-cutter type story, since I do better with these books when I know it ahead of time. Also excited by the non-cliffhanger. And the crazy storyline.
Haha how funny that we’re totally opposite! I guess it’s because I like books with a lot of romance. So it bothers me when I don’t get to see the romance fully developed! But if you like less romance in your books then it totally makes sense that you would prefer the opposite!
I’m not planning to read this one for awhile, so I read the spoiler, and it makes sense. I was sort of figuring it was something like that. Characters who are totally oblivious tend to work on my nerves, so I’m not sure I’d love Seraphina, but this story sounds so darn GOOD that I want to give it a try.
And HEY, no cliffhanger! That’s awesome. I’m a big fan of books ending when/where they should, and it’s one thing to leave it open-ended if it makes SENSE, but a cliffhanger just to reel me back in for book 2 often makes me not want to continue. So yay!
And I felt this way when I was writing my review of TAKEN by Erin Bowman – I kept tweaking my review, because all the good things – I – wanted to say were spoilers. LOL. Anyway, great review, Ashley!
I really hope you like it Molli! I was pleased by the lack of cliffhanger too! I can see how the story might continue, but everything gets wrapped up super well! It was satisfying. 🙂
I’ve wanted to read this for awhile, but I don’t know, it’s not the time of book that I usually go for, but I really like Jessica Brody & the book trailer. I might give it a try 🙂
Unremembered surpassed all my expecations! Honestly I think the way everything came together, and the pace we find out all these hidden things about Seraphina’s past was really well done! I loved the twists this book took and how I wasn’t able to guess anything beforehand– even if they were like so obvouis that I should have!