The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr

 An unforgettable story about a girl who can't remember.

Imagine that surgeons remove a brain tumour to save your life, yet at the same time they also remove your ability to form short term memories.  Ever since that fateful day, Flora Banks lives only in the present.  She doesn't remember what she did hours earlier yet alone yesterday, last week, nor last month.  Her last memories were formed when she was ten.

This all changes the night she kisses a boy.  The next morning she remembers she kissed Drake.  Wow, this is huge for Flora.  It changes her life.  From that moment she knows she has to find that boy and determine if he is the key to unlocking her memories.

This is an outstanding novel.  I was captivated by Flora's unravelling story.  I had to bribe myself to put it down when real life called to me.

Author Emily Barr has done a terrific job of getting inside Flora's head.  At one moment if felt as though I was listening in on ten your old Flora, and then when she remembered the kiss, she once again 17 and I'm listening to a teenager.  The coping strategies she uses are exactly those that a family friend, with almost no short term memory, uses.  I can see some parallels in their experiences and the confusion that they experience.

It is interesting to see how those around her respond.  Her parents almost smother her, leaving her with essentially no choice, and no life.  Her friend Paige and her brother Jacob respect the individual within Flora and encourage her to live in the present.

One important theme in the novel is the power of lies.  Several characters in this story are caught telling lies.  All of them harmful   Even Flora lies when she tells people that she remembers them  Without giving away any plot points, lying to protect someone, even ones self will always end up harming another, often in unseen or unexpected ways.

I highly recommend this book.  It will make you wonder about your own daily life, how much you have changed over the years and how important your memories of those changes are.

Cover image courtesy Penguin Random House Canada.

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Indigo Books & Music Inc., in exchange for an honest review.

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