Ola

My first review for my blog. This is a special moment!

I’ll start by being honest – one of my guilty pleasures is watching youtubers and vloggers who have gone ridiculously viral and get paid silly amounts of money to film themselves just doing life or reviewing beauty products etc etc. One of those youtubers being Zoella. On the back of this guilty pleasure, I picked up every book in Zoella’s 2017 Book Club which consists of about 8 young adult novels. The One Memory of Flora Banks is not the first of these books that I have read, however it’s the first that I am writing a review for.

So here goes…

Bit of context; Flora Banks is a 17 year old girl who suffers with a brain problem which means she has pretty much no short term memory. Her brain doesn’t log any memories since before she was 10. This all changes when she gets kissed by a boy and miraculously she remembers it. She clings onto this memory and goes on an adventure to try and find the boy once he has disappeared from her life.

I’ll be honest, reading the blurb and my own summary above, I thought hmmm this sounds like it’s going to be a YA romance that’s so far from reality and akin to a story the 11 year old me would have found in a Point Romance novel…at 30 years of age, why am I reading this?!

Turns out it has much more depth than that and I’m fairly sure Point Romance wouldn’t have ever come up with anything quite this good. I don’t want to give away any spoilers for this one and want people to be able to read it for themselves, but I will say there are some twists and turns in this book that make it interesting. Although they weren’t always completely unpredictable, they were both well delivered and well written.

That said, I have questions. Questions that just weren’t answered by the book and therefore kind of made the plot a little less believable, less tangible and less like a finished story for me. All I will say, is emails, WHAT ABOUT THE EMAILS?! (you’ll read about the emails not too far in) And this girl must have had an arm that would put most body builders to shame…I’m sure she has war and peace written on that arm of hers.

I tend to always identify with/like some of the supporting characters in books rather than the main ones. I think it’s just because I always want to know more about them. This book was no different. Paige (Flora’s best friend) was my favourite character. In the beginning of the book I did have her labelled as a bitch, but who wouldn’t?! Fast forward to the end and I loved her. Little gem. But I would have liked to have heard Paige’s voice in the book. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be 17 and have a best friend that you have to remind is your best friend every couple of hours. Sounds like hard work if you ask me!

All in all, this wasn’t a bad read. It wasn’t earth shattering, but I didn’t struggle with it. Easy going, pleasant and an overall good YA.

3 out of 5 stars

😍😍😍😩😩

Sarah

“If you have bad skin, lipstick will stop people noticing it” – Flora’s rules for life.

The One Memory of Flora Banks – Emily Barr