Unremembered by Jessica Brody
Series: Unremembered #1
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux on March 5, 2013
Genres: Science Fiction, Survival, Suspense
Pages: 307
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher (Mail)
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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?

Welcome to my stop along the official Unremembered blog tour, hosted by Macmillan Kids! We’ve got a jam-packed post today with my review, The Who is Seraphina? clue #9, a special guest post about the things Jessica Brody hopes she never “unremembers”, and a chance to win a hardback copy of Unremembered!

First of all, happy book birthday to Jessica Brody! Unremembered hits shelves today, and I am SO excited for you all to read and experience this wonderfully exciting book! I love mysteries and I love survival stories. Unremembered is both, plus a little science fiction. You really can’t go wrong with this one! I’m keeping my review short because we’ve got Jessica’s post right after!

1. I love the mystery and frustration that comes with memory loss stories. I mean, OH MY. I was getting so terribly frustrated that Sera/Violet could not remember anything! But at the same time, I was tearing through those pages in the hopes that she would remember. And the intrigue and danger that came with not remembering was really exciting.

2. This story flows really fast, but not so fast that you can’t keep up. I loved that.

3. I really liked Sera. I thought it was really cool that, since Sera did not remember anything, we got to learn about her past right along with her. Sometimes an author throws you into a story and has to teach you what a character already knows about his or herself. That can sometimes end up being tedious and frustrating. With Unremembered, though, we get to experience everything with Sera.

4. I really liked the very little I got to learn about Zen in this story. I’m hoping he plays a more dynamic role as the trilogy unfolds, because I really like what I know about him so far. I hope we get more of his own back story, rather than his past with Sera. I want to know him. And I was hoping for more romance. We get glimmers of it throughout the story, so I know the potential… and I want more! I can see book #2 being amazingly good.

5. The sci-fi aspect is really cool and unique. I won’t give too much away, because I loved not knowing about it when I started the book. Let’s just say there are some evil people, associated with an evil plan, who go to great lengths to get back what they claim is theirs. It was so exciting!

Overall, I loved Unremembered. It’s definitely a step or two away from the books I usually read, and I loved this change. I’d recommend this to people who enjoy a little bit of everything in their stories: romance, sci-fi, mystery, survival. It’s the beginning of a promising trilogy, and even though I know we are all really beginning to tire of trilogies, but this one is worth investing the next 2-3 years in.

And now for today’s clue!

Jessica Brody: Five Things I Hope I Never Unremember

My memory is a pretty fickle thing. It likes to play tricks on me. It likes to make up stuff and convince me they’re real. It has a tendency to completely misplace things and then blame me for it. Basically, my memory is a really annoying younger sibling.

When Jana and I first got in touch to talk about post ideas for this blog tour she suggested two topics: The first was “5 Things You Hope You Never Forget” and the second…well, I don’t think I even read the second because I was too excited about the first and my mind was already churning with ideas!

This topic is so charmingly appropriate. In UNREMEMBERED, my character, Seraphina, thinks she has amnesia after she’s been rescued from the site of a plane crash and has no memories about who she is or where she came from. But she soon learns there’s much more to her past than simple memory loss. Someone has actually been erasing memories from her mind. No bueno. I can certainly think of a boatload of things I hope are never stolen from my own mind but since the topic of this blog post is “5 Things You Hope You Never Forget” and not “A Boatload of Things You Hope You Never Forget,” I suppose I will have to narrow it down. 

So…here are the top 5 things I will cling to like a Krispy Kreme in a donut drought, should anyone ever try to erase my memories.

5. The way my dogs look at me after they sneak into the backseat of the car and hope I won’t notice and make them get out.

4. This perm at age 13. Because if I forget it, I may end up repeating it. *Shudders at the thought*

3. The girl who bullied me in the 6th grade. As painful as it was, as horrible as she made me feel pretty much every single day, I know her actions shaped who I am today. Remembering her means remembering that I survived it.

2.  The day I signed my first book contract. I had been trying to get published for over 5 years and had a mountain of rejection letters (I still have them all!) Getting that first contract in the mail (all official in a Fedex envelope) was pretty much one of the best feelings in the world. I would never want to lose that.

1. And last but most important, I hope I never forget why I do this job. It’s not for money or acclaim or to see my name on the front of a book. It’s to tell stories. To bring make-believe worlds to life. To entertain people like you. Fortunately, I’m reminded of this with every fan letter I receive and every reader who takes the time to tweet me or leave a comment on my Facebook page. So thank you for making sure I never unremember.

Comments from me: Yay! Jessica, thank you SO much for stopping by the blog today! I loved your answers. Your dogs are adorable, your perm was out of this world (I secretly wish I had a crazy hair style when I was younger, because then I could tease myself…), and you look so happy signing your contract! It was so much fun getting to know you better today. :)