fairy skeletons.: Book Review: Unremembered by Jessica Brody

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?

URG. I don't want to say this. Because I went to a book signing in March that also had MARISSA MEYER  present that featured Jessica Brody and she seemed like a really cool and nice person.

But I really didn't like this book.

One big thing that sounds very picky (but actually isn't if you think about it) is the names threw me off. They were just too weird. I mean, they were cool names in and of themselves, but it was kind of like Jessica was using all the names she's ever longed to use and just dumping them into this random sci-fi novel and sending me reeling. I mean, Seraphina, Lyzender (who names the love interest Lyzender? it's just as bad as Tobias from Divergent), Alixter, Rio. It annoyed me throughout the book. Seriously.

Another big thing, though, is that the entire plot revolves around the romance. I don't know who's with me on this, but I generally don't like these kinds of books (unless they're really cute/meaningful chick lit/contemporary fic - The Fault in Our Stars, Sarah Dessen, anyone? those books just... I love them). So basically it starts out with a pretty cliché premise (she's floating around in the middle of the ocean, having lost all her memories. This sounds veeerrry familiar.) and a strange MC and this boy who is slightly creepy actually, stalking Seraphina all the time without explaining anything and then when it's time to explain, not doing it properly and instead sticking a cube of memories in her brain. It didn't make sense and the feelings just weren't there.

Seraphina was... just... a Mary Sue. I mean, there are some characters out there who fully, fully deserve to be Mary Sues (Will Herondale, Jace Herondale, Westley etc.) but this girl... no. From the beginning everyone's going on and on about how beautiful and perfect she is, which immediately makes her completely unrelatable to about 80% of the population. Then you realize she's also super smart and can run super fast and is pretty nice to people. 

Then you get PISSED OFF.

Because first of all, main characters never work well as Mary Sues. A supporting Mary Sue, sure. As long as they're brilliant and awesome and stuff. But this perfect person just plopping down at the beginning of the story, without any character building... it basically makes you hate them immediately. Grr.

And I do love stories that manage to combine the most random elements in the most perfect way. John Green does this unbelievably amazingly. But this tried... and failed.

Poetry from Shakespeare, time travel, eternal love, and Sanskrit? (BTW, Seraphina can also speak like a gajillion different languages. Agh.) Yech.

So no, I didn't like this book, and only read it if you have nothing else to read. Like. NOTHING. I'm not even going to bother looking for the next books in the series when they come out.