Review of Remember by Eileen Cook

Title/Author: Remember by Eileen Cook
Publisher/Date published: Simon Pulse, February 24th 2015
How I got this book: received it from the publisher as an egalley
Buy this book at: The Book Depository

Goodreads summary: 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...

I was really excited to start Remember, because the brain and memory are fascinating to me. I however did not really appreciate the execution of Remember.

The concept of softening your memories so you retain them but they don't hurt you anymore. It's both scary and something I can imagine in the treatment of PTSS patients. So I was a bit disappointed that while it's a factor in the story, there's not really an explanation for how they found this and how it all works and everything that I was wondering about. So that was a bit of a let down.

I didn't much care for Harper, she was an ok main character, but I was just not connecting with her. I never really got a good feel of her personality and she was both taking action and being a damsel in distress and I just wasn't really feeling it. And I get that she needed a reason to get the treatment, but I didn't like that she would rather not feel anything about the horse who'd her best friend for years than work through the grief. I appreciated that she was this devastated by the loss of an animal who'd been close to her since she'd been a child, but it felt a bit like a lack of character to go ahead with the procedure.

I also wasn't feeling the romance, I mean, I didn't get why they liked each other and there's some telling instead of showing me they developed a relationship, they'd apparantly met for coffee multiple times off-page. I mean, I get that they could be attracted to each other, but there was an I love you straight out of nowhere and I was like WTF??? I didn't get why they would risk all of what they did for each other.

I did like the whole intrigue with Harper's parents, that was interesting, but all of it feels a bit unresolved. I mean, Harper finds out what's been going on, but they don't really do anything about it except for that and her dad just seems awful and UGH! I felt that in the end the only thing that was resolved was Harper getting together with the new guy and everything else was still blah.

All in, I thought this was an interesting concept, but the execution failed to impress me.

My rating: 1,5 stars