Review: Remember by Eileen Cook

Remember by Eileen Cook

Publishing Date: February 24, 2015
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 320 pages
Young Adult Contemporary Fiction

The Premise: The story follows Harper who is the daughter of the man who runs the company Neurotech. Neurotech is known primarily for their medicine Memtex, which is designed to wipe away sad memories, or to soften them so the person taking the medication won't feel as sad with those memories. Harper is used to the attention being the daughter of the man who runs this company and with her, she has her bestfriend Win and her boyfriend Josh. Everything seems to be going just perfectly in her life until one day, Harper suffers a loss she can't quite recover from. She decides that in order to cope with her loss, she wishes to go ahead and get the Memtex treatment despite her father forbidding her. The treatment does work, but soon after she experiences strange symptoms and illusions and she begins questioning her memory.

My overall thoughts and review: I am currently incredibly fascinated by the unconscious in my own research, so any book that tackles the notion of memories, dreams, the unconscious really intrigue me. When I first began this book, I really thought of one of my favorite films: The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (if you haven't seen it - what are you waiting for?) - a medication to wipe away sad memories sounds just like that film. Harper is a great protagonist to read from because she is strong-willed, intelligent and curious. I really enjoyed the dynamic between her and her bestfriend, Win. The overall pacing of the story was good until the last few chapters which I felt were a bit rushed and I wish everything didn't wrap up so quickly. All in all, I really enjoyed it. It was an interesting spin on YA contemporary fiction in general, because I felt it had a very dystopic feel to it and also a bit of sci-fi, with the medicine component. The love story or well, triangle in this case, was also interesting too. I definitely would recommend checking out this book if you are a fan of Lauren Oliver's Delirium series because I can definitely see some connections between this book and that series. This is my first read from Eileen Cook and I look forward to picking up some of her other works in the near future.

You can check out Eileen Cook's website here!

My rating of the book: ✮✮✮✮ (4/5 stars) 

Now available for purchase at:
Chapters/Indigo

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by Simon and Schuster Canada for consideration/review. All opinions are my own.