Review: Remember by Eileen Cook

Remember, by Eileen Cook
Publication: February 24, 2015, by Simon Pulse
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance, Science-Fiction
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 

A thrilling tale about what a girl will do to get back a memory she lost…or remove what she wants to forget.
Harper is used to her family being hounded by protesters. Her father runs the company that trademarked the "Memtex" procedure to wipe away sad memories, and plenty of people think it shouldn't be legal. Then a new demonstrator crosses her path, Neil, who’s as persistent as he is hot. Not that Harper’s noticing, since she already has a boyfriend.
When Harper suffers a loss, she’s shocked her father won’t allow her to get the treatment, so she finds a way to get it without his approval. Soon afterward, she’s plagued with strange symptoms, including hallucinations of a woman who is somehow both a stranger, yet incredibly familiar. Harper begins to wonder if she is delusional, or if these are somehow memories.
Together with Neil, who insists he has his own reasons for needing answers about the real dangers of Memtex, Harper begins her search for the truth. What she finds could uproot all she’s ever believed about her life… 

My Thoughts:

Yay for local Canadian authors and one huge yay for Eileen Cook's 2015 newest novel! She's honestly one of the authors that I just can't get enough of and I feel the strong need to grab every book from. Sadly, Remember is the only book that I feel a more negative turn into by her. Lurking for some nice science-fiction mixed with romance that really reminds me of Elusion by Claudia Gabel? This is your match.

When I grabbed an eARC of this from Edelweiss last year, I was super excited. THE COVER OF THIS IS SO GORGEOUS and I love the way Cook has each of her books being created with the same style scheme. They all match and look beautiful on shelves, I tell you! I guess I had higher expectations than needed. The last book by Cook I've read definitely deserved a 5 star rating, and I knew that Remember would deserve a billion. Agh. For me, this definitely is one of the worser books of the month, and it was truly nothing special. Everything seemed bland like a glass of room temperature water.

This book almost literally bored me to death. And here's a glimpse of its summary from my point-of-view: Harper's dad has discovered and created a method of deleting sad memories from people who make the decision to, and after Harper's horse dies, she decides that she would want to take the chance to erase the sorrow that she had to go through. But her dad's against it, so she finds her own way to get Memtex, and it was the worst decision possible. Afterwards, she begins to get hallucinations and feel worse than she did before. 

It's either just me, or it's the book. The science-fiction subject here wasn't for me. It just wasn't believable. The idea of having something to erase sad memories was strange—it certainly isn't a miracle for humans. Why not having a cure for some illness or something? What about cool robots? I feel that if you're going to play with this subject, then at least you need some proof that there are some futuristic elements, other than some miracle plan that your rich science geek daddy made up. Cook is better off with her wonderful romances that she comes up with. At least the romance in this one was pretty adorable. Neil + Harper equals perfection. 

Like I mentioned above, I was bored. Cook's writing took another turn than her usual and it didn't seem like the usual contemporary as I've known from her past novels. It's like this book tried so hard to compare to the other dystopians, but it just fell hard, splat on its face. The writing was slow, delirious and lacking something nice slash warming to a reader's heart. I don't even have much to say after reading this and I feel like it's just going to be a short review. Or short for me, at least. *shrugs*

I guess that the characters were a highlight of the novel. Forget about the kind-of-dumb concept with Harper's horse (I thought that someone would pass away instead), let's just take a peek at themselves. 

Harper's situation with her horse was kind of awkward. I mean, her parents even saw that her going to take Memtex was kind of a stupid idea in terms of why. When Harry died, she started panicking, actually. But as us characters move on through the story and actually get to know her, I liked her. Her view on Catholic school was hilarious and I loved her best friend, Win. And then she was also with Josh at the same time (and we all know how that worked out) and I saw him as a nice friend but nothing else. Us readers now all know who's her perfect match! 

Neil had that special spark in him. We usually don't find that kind of special something in fictional characters (okay, maybe I do all the time) and he definitely had it. Someone who's there for you and actually gets your experience (his brother's life) is your ultimate soulmate, people. I shipped them hard from the start, from where Harper thought that he was a stalker! *laughs* Those awkward relationship-starts always seem to work out in the end. 

Eileen actually handed us a pretty messed-up ending, but I actually loved it. Beware of some mind-blowing answers to your endless amount of questions. There's star-struck lovers (protestor and daughter of creator?) and a concept that's used continuously, but it somehow worked out for some readers and I can see why. If you're a strict lover of all things science-fiction, then this can definitely turn out fantastic for you. And yet again, you need a ton amount of patience to actually get you going through the pages. This was a downfall for me especially by looking at the author's other works, but all we have to do is remember the great stuff.