Remember

by Eileen Cook

[Leah]

When I saw Remember by Eileen Cook up on Edelweiss I thought it sounded very interesting. I love novels relating to memory loss or the ability to lessen the impact of certain memories – and could have done with the Memtex treatment myself in 2013 when we lost our dog, Scruffy. That would have made those months after his death so much easier to bear, although I can’t say I’m a fan of the potential side effects. So I could completely understand why Harper was willing to go and have the Memtex treatment after the death of her beloved horse, Harry. But it opens up a massive can of worms as Harper finds herself having memories she isn’t sure are real or false, of a woman she’s sure she knows.

I have to confess that I was actually disappointed in Remember. It wasn’t what I was expected and, at times, it seemed as if the plot was just too ridiculous to really be true. A lot happens at the end of the novel, a lot of secrets come out and truths are revealed, and it all seemed excessive to me. I suppose I just didn’t understand the motivations behind what happens at the end of the book. I would never have expected Harper to be treated the way she was treated, it was all a bit too ghoulish to be true, coming from the person it came from. And I’m sure that makes zero sense if you haven’t read the book, but hopefully if you have you can see where I’m coming from. In my world, Dad’s don’t act like that to their daughters, and I just felt Harper’s dad came across as a very mean supervillian which from everything we knew of him thus far didn’t really ring true. Yes, he was analytical and a bit emotionless, but to threaten to wipe his own daughter’s memory and pass it off as her being crazy?!?!

It wasn’t a bad book, and I did sort of like the whole conspiracy thing regarding Memtex and whether or not Neil was telling the truth about his brother, and whether Memtex did actually cause side effects etc, I just felt more could have been done with the plot. Neil was by far my favourite character, but even he tended to go off on some weird conspiracy theories that baffled me. I can never 100% trust people who think they’re being followed and don’t own a mobile phone. For me, they’re the ones who are a bit cracked, but other than that he was lovely. I wanted Remember to blow me away, but it didn’t really do that for me and I finished it feeling a little bit let down.