Not Another Horrible YA Novel

Contagion – Teri Terry

Epidemics, missing persons, memory, antimatter, dystopias, brothers and sisters, science fiction, Great Britain, identity, young adult, fiction.

Rating 1/10

In this apocalyptic world, a disease is unleased to the masses. Callie, a test subject for the most part of her life, has escaped and on the hunt for the man who kidnapped her. Her older brother, Kai, wants to know what was done to his baby sister and wants revenge too. When Shay encounters this disease, she dies and reborn with the ability to talk with the dead. Now Callie, Shay, and Kai are on the run to save themselves from evil forces that threaten their existence.

I did not enjoy nor like this young adult fiction at all. I have found this novel unbearable to read and did not bother finishing the final hundred pages. I feel like this dystopian fiction has been overused now and all gets repetitive with a certain formula. I respect the idea, but the author did not make this subgenre work. Too much clichés and that was extremely distasteful. Not sorry for giving this novel a low rating.

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Memories… Forgotten and Regained Here

What Alice Forgot – Liane Moriarty

Fiction, memory loss, amnesiacs, memory, divorce, domestic, life change, children, family, drama

Rating 10/10

After a nasty fall at a spin class, Alice Love had forgotten an entire decade of her life. Meaning she only remembers marrying Nick and becoming pregnant. She already has three kids and getting a divorce. Shocking! Alice is trying to navigate with her amnesia and getting reacquainted with her life. It isn’t easy for Alice to try to grasp why she is going through a divorce and is apart of the parent club at her children’s school. Her own children help Alice put the pieces together as well as understand the whole divorce as well as introduce themselves to Alice. As time progresses, Alice slowly remembers what happened in the past ten years of her life. A best friend died. An affair happened with her best friend’s husband with another woman. Even all the gossip with the parents at the elementary school. An incident occurred with Alice and Nick’s child and they reminisce the past. Nick offers to give their marriage another chance. Even their children want them to get back together too. At an event, all Alice’s forgotten memories come flooding back. Things go back to normality.

This book was incredible and was so addicting, a real page turner. I was sort of expecting that amnesia would be the issue and it would resolve through the narrative. Anyways I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it made me laugh and cry a little. It was a very different genre of book that I ever had read and becoming a fan of this author for her intricate writing and storytelling. Moriarty struck me in places and told the story perfectly as well as made me ponder about life in general. Life can happen at any moment, just got to adapt for the time being and hope for regularity afterwards.