Unremembered (Unremembered #1) – Jessica Brody

Unremembered (Unremembered #1) – Jessica BrodyTitle: Unremembered (Unremembered #1) by Jessica Brody
Publishing Info: March 5, 2013 by Macmillan
Source: ARC
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: May 5, 2013
Related Posts: Unforgotten (Unremembered #2), A Week of Mondays

    Sixteen-year-old Sera is the only survivor of an explosion on a plane. She wakes up in hospital to find that she has no memory. The only clue to her identity is a mysterious boy who claims she was part of a top-secret science experiment. The only adult she trusts insists that she shouldn’t believe anything that anybody tells her. In a tense and pacy novel exploding with intrigue and action, Sera must work out who she is and where she came from. Eventually she will learn that the only thing worse than forgetting her past is remembering it.

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I feel like I need to preface this by say that I was really, really skeptical about this book before I started because I feel like I saw so many 3 star & under reviews when the book first came out. I am so glad I decided to still give it a shot because honestly? I don’t 100% sure remember what those reviews didn’t like about it and I can take a few guesses… but personally, I really did enjoy it!

That being said, I think this book worked well with me in the end because the twists were so “me”. I don’t really want to go into what those twists were because, hello, spoiler alerts galore — I’ll just say that the direction the book was taken just suited some major elements that fascinate me. Those twists may have been what totally turned other people off and they just drew me in more, so I guess I can see if people were disappointed in that. I found it kind of fascinating! 

UNREMEMBERED is a hard book to talk about for me because I feel like even though I was really interested to see what was happening, I still found myself jumping straight to dialogue from time to time instead of reading all of the in between descriptors. Usually that means one of two things for me: 1) I’m so excited that I can’t wait to see what happens next so I jump to the meat of the story or 2) I’m trying to hurry to finish the book because I’m not entirely interested in the “filler” of the book and just the meat of the story. With UNREMEMBERED, I was definitely enjoying the book but I honestly can’t tell you which category I fell in when I was skipping to the dialogue. It was a little bit in the middle of the two, I’d have to say.

I will say that one thing I didn’t care for was the beginning of the book simply because our MC is SO affected by this amenesia that she not only is missing details about herself, but doesn’t remember things like HUGS and JOKES. I get erasing specific memories, but that seemed above and beyond things that would be forgotten and/or erased and frankly, it bothered me. I was glad that it wasn’t like that throughout the whole book or I really would have been annoyed. Things got better once the book started progressing and I started to feel like Sera/Violet was seeming more like a normal person (well, as normal as you can get with her abilities/strengths).

There was a romance… I was just ‘meh’ about it. I didn’t hate Zen but I was never crazy over the whole romance in the book either. It was necessary though as a driving factor for a lot of the book. I just didn’t swoon over the guy, that’s all!

I guess I would have to say for those looking to pick it up that be aware that this is a bit more sci-fi than paranormal. I thought it was going to be a lot more paranormal (maybe I was assuming so because it involved a plane crash and I was equating it to Lost subconsciously? Even though that’s sci-fi and not paranormal…  but there are many more science fiction elements than paranormal. I enjoyed the book because those elements present were definitely suited to my tastes and I can easily see how finding those out may turn other people off, if that’s not their bag. I’m happy that I still read the book because for a while with those negative reviews that I read, I was growing increasingly scared. It just goes to show you that so many people have different reading tastes and really all books are worth a try! You never know what you may love that someone else didn’t.

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Sera/Violet/Jane Doe: I’m going to call her Sera since that’s what the blurb focuses on… I definitely didn’t like her in the beginning actually. With a mind wiped blank and so many silly little things lost that I didn’t think were necessary, she bothered me. Once we started to get into the main plot of the story…. Well, she still wasn’t my BFF, but I did like her and her story a lot more! I was still on her side and anxious to see what was going to happen.
Lyzander aka Zen: Zen is our love interest in this book and he was perfectly nice, but again, another character that I didn’t really get into too much. I never really swooned for him like I have for other book crushes, but it also wasn’t like “What does she see in him” — I was somewhere in the middle of the road for him.

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Read it!

I really ended up enjoying this book! It didn’t TOTALLY bowl me over but I really had a great time reading it and I’m definitely interested in continuing. I can’t wait to see what happens next!!!

book_recommendations1BOOKS LIKE UNREMEMBERED

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Hi, I'm Brittany!
Hi, I'm Brittany!

I'm an avid reader, candle-maker, and audiobook lover! Here you'll find book reviews, fun blog posts, and my other loves of photography & craft beer!

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13 thoughts on “Unremembered (Unremembered #1) – Jessica Brody

  1. Kelly

    Despite the so-so reviews I’ve seen for this so far, I was still interested in reading it until you said that the romance was used to drive the plot forward. In a contemporary, that’s perfectly acceptable. But in a sci-fi/paranormal, that really bothers me; I want the romance to grow organically, not because it has to to move the plot forward. Now I’m back on the fence about this! Haha

  2. Kelley (Another Novel Read)

    You and I definitely seem to agree on the plot twists, and on the characters. I wasn’t especially over the moon about Zen, but I did like that he was true to her throughout everything. I wasn’t as annoyed by Sera in the beginning, though. I was actually pretty amused when she didn’t know what stuff was — especially once her foster family got involved. I’m glad you enjoyed this one though.

  3. Candice

    I’ll admit… this one isn’t on my radar. I mean, I think if someone handed the book to me and said “read it” I’d give it a try, but not really interested in rushing out to find it. All that being said… the concept sounds really good. I mean, it sounds like something I’d be interested in! I think maybe my reading tastes are changing.

  4. Maggie @ Just a Couple More Pages

    I am one of the people who gave this a bad review. I actually really liked the concept of the story and the twists. I liked the idea of time travel rather than aliens (I thought it would be about aliens, too) and I always find stories about people being bred to be killing machines interesting. I just didn’t think the execution was there. I thought there were some plot holes and the words Sera did/didn’t know drove me crazy.

    Even though I didn’t like Unremembered I probably will read the second book. I’d like to find out what happens and maybe now that all the setup is out of the way the execution won’t bother me so much?

    1. Brittany Post author

      I totally get it! This wasn’t a book where I was like “OMG it was amazing! I don’t get how people could hate it!” I totally get it. I had several issues myself, but I think because I went in with a lower expectation, I wasn’t let down and really came out about where I thought I would. But I’m so glad it WASN’T about aliens. And the words — Sheesh, that really drove me nuts. I get that a lot of her memory was missing, but that was just silly. Part of the twist was just so up my alley so I actually appreciated that and now I’m SUPER curious to see where book two goes! I think book two will be better than the first now that everything is set up.
      Thanks so much for the comment! I loved hearing your feedback 🙂

  5. Christina @ Allodoxophobia

    I had this ready at the library and ended up not picking it up because I knew I wouldn’t have time for it. I’m kind of glad now, seeing that it was good but not great. Perhaps something to try over the summer though.

    1. Brittany Post author

      Yeah, I would say it’s not a “rush to read it” book, but I enjoyed it and I’m glad I read it! I kind of feel like book two will be even better since now there are a lot of kinks that were worked out in the first book. It was a pretty quick read for me though!

    1. Brittany Post author

      Yay!! Glad to see someone else enjoyed it 🙂 I think book two will start out strong and I’m actually pretty interested in seeing where that one goes!

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