The One Memory of Flora Banks

The One Memory of Flora Banks is Emily Barr's debut YA novel.

Seventeen-year-old Flora Banks has no short-term memory. Her mind resets itself several times a day, and has since the age of ten, when the tumor that was removed from Flora's brain took with it her ability to make new memories. That is, until she kisses Drake, her best friend's boyfriend, the night before he leaves town. Miraculously, this one memory breaks through Flora's fractured mind, and sticks. Flora is convinced that Drake is responsible for restoring her memory and making her whole again. So when an encouraging email from Drake suggests she meet him on the other side of the world, Flora knows with certainty that this is the first step toward reclaiming her life. 

With little more than the words "be brave" inked into her skin, and written reminders of who she is and why her memory is so limited, Flora sets off on an impossible journey to Svalbard, Norway, the land of the midnight sun, determined to find Drake. But from the moment she arrives in the arctic, nothing is quite as it seems, and Flora must "be brave" if she is ever to learn the truth about herself, and to make it safely home.

The Breakdown:
1.   This book was very hard for me to get into.  I get that Flora cannot make memories after she is ten years old, but the constant rehashing of everything going on made the flow of the book hard to really dive into it.   It did start to flow a little better once Flora made it to Norway, but by that time I had a hard time caring about the story.

2.  There were several things in this book that did not make sense to be.  Minor issue is that Flora goes to movie's with her friend.  Why in the world would you pay like $10 for a movie that you can't remember an hour after it is over. Waste of money.  The biggest issue for me was the parents leaving to go take care of her brother in France and just planned on another 17 year old girl to take care of her. These over protective parents of a child that cannot remember anything are totally okay in trusting her care to a teenager. Not a in home nurse, and trusted adult, but a teenager. That just seemed ridiculous.

3. I did like the characters that Flora meets in Norway. This part of the book was the best with her learning to navigate on her own, and charming all these people.

4. Once learning more of Flora's condition and her mother's response to it made me a. question even more the leaving her in the care of a teenager, and b. really dislike her mother.  The mother's reasoning and responses to her made her seem like some creepy mother with an unnatural attachment to her child.

To Read or Not to Read:
Skip this one