The One Memory Of Flora Banks Review

The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"I'm useless," I tell him. "I can't do anything. I'm not really a person because I don't know what's happening."
"I am not human," I say. "I just exist, like an animal."

I have so many feelings about this book that I don't think I will be able to articulate them all, but I guess I'll try.

Flora Banks is a 17-year-old with a very unique type of amnesia--she has no memories beyond her 10th birthday. She does make new memories, but after three hours or so, her brain wipes them away, leaving her floundering. So every few hours, she looks down on her body, panicking because she's only 10, so why is she trapped in the body of a grown up?
Every time her parents had to sit her down and explain, making her read her little notebook which contained all the pertinent information about her condition, my heart broke just a little bit.
All of that changes when she kisses a boy on a beach, and remembers it the next day, and the next, and the next.
Here begins Flora's adventure: with only the phrase Flora be brave tattooed on the back of her hand, and her trusty notebook, she evades her parents and goes to find the boy who kissed her. Maybe he's the answer to helping her memory problems.

I had suspected from the start that there was something Flora's parents were keeping hidden, something that became more apparent when Flora traveled to Svalbard, Norway to find Drake. I loved how independent she was, and how, despite all her issues, she was able to achieve the goal she'd set for herself. I really felt for Flora. At times I wanted to give her a big, fat hug while simultaneously strangling her mother.
Reading this book made me realize how faulty a person's memory is. I mean, do I really remember the things I do as they actually happened, or did I smudge them a bit in my head?
Scary thought, or what?!




View all my reviews