Monday, June 13, 2011

My Name is Memory

Author: Ann Brashares

Age: Adult/Teen (It's marketed for adults, apparently, but it's not very different from most teen fantasy romances. Most good ones, anyway.)


A caveat before we begin—up until the last 80 pages or so, I thought this was one of the best books I had read in a long time. At that point, unfortunately, what had been an enchanting, rather original love story somehow (despite me screaming at it to stop!) changed before my eyes into an annoyingly generic thriller. And it turns out that it’s meant to be the first in a trilogy, which also irritates me, because “trilogy” always seems to mean a wholly unsatisfying ending to each of the first two and an unnecessarily long-drawn-out, repetitive plot. I’m really not sure how much more Brashares can do with this story line. If it were up to me (and of course it’s not), I would have thought another 100 pages or so would have wrapped up the story nicely without making the book an unwieldy length. Sigh. BUT the first few hundred pages are so good that it’s worth reading anyway, and I’m not giving up hope that Brashares has something fantastic up her sleeve for the next two.

Lucy is a high school senior who has had a crush on Daniel since he moved to her school two years ago, but he doesn’t seem to know she exists. Then they find themselves together in an empty classroom at the graduation dance. Lucy is thrilled that Daniel finally seems into her—really into her—but when he calls her by the wrong name, she thinks he must be drunk or high or maybe even deranged, and has confused her with someone else. Embarrassed and a bit frightened, she leaves.

The story follows Lucy through her college years, during which she can never quite stop thinking about Daniel. Daniel can’t stop thinking about Lucy, either, but he’s worried that he really scared her and isn’t sure if he should try to contact her again. Besides, Daniel’s a very patient man. He’s been in love with Lucy for over a thousand years.

Everyone on earth lives many lives, but most people don’t carry their memory from one life to the next, except perhaps occasionally in nightmares. (Do you have a recurring nightmare about falling? Or drowning? Or being bitten by a snake? That’s probably how you died in a previous life.) Daniel is unique. He can remember in detail every life he’s ever lived. In his first life, he was a foot soldier. He attacked Lucy’s village (only of course she wasn’t called Lucy then) and set her house on fire. Just before she burned to death, he saw her face and knew he loved her.

In every life he’s lived since then, Daniel has searched for Lucy, whom he calls Sophia. It isn’t easy. He goes many lives—hundreds of years, sometimes—without catching a glimpse of her. If they do meet, they are often the wrong age for each other. In fact, only twice between their first meeting and the present day have they been born at roughly the same time in the same geographical area. The first time, she is married to his brother, and the second, she is a WWI nurse and he is a dying soldier. Will this life finally be their chance to grow old together? Or will they be thwarted once again? For there is another soul who remembers, and he bitterly hates both Daniel and Sophia for perceived wrongs committed in previous lives.

The point of view trades back and forth between Lucy in the present day, who is alternately trying to find and forget Daniel, and Daniel, who tells the story of all the lives in which he has known Lucy/Sophia. Every girl who’s ever had a crush she can’t quite shake, no matter how improbable, will be able to sympathize with Lucy. But Daniel’s side of the story is what’s particularly fascinating to me. I love books that encompass many stories within one story, and I love historical fiction. I found Daniel’s stories interesting and unique. standard historical fiction deals with the famous figures of the era—the main character plays a significant role in history or at least manages to observe important events. But Daniel lives very ordinary lives—he’s usually a sailor or a foot solider—the sort that are almost entirely unremembered by history.

As far as the romance goes, Daniel has all the qualities that make Edward Cullen wonderfully sexy with none of the drawbacks. Because he can remember all of his lives, he is, in essence, immortal. He’s been through school dozens of times and is incredibly well educated. He’s also fantastically wealthy, because whenever he is rich in one life he invests in something durable and hides it for later. But he can also go outside in sunlight and he never feels the urge to drink Lucy’s blood. Ann Brashares has improved upon the most perfect vampire boyfriend in literature. You never even imagined that was possible. Well, now you know.

The story is interesting and the writing is decent, but what I liked most of all was that this book is the rare sort that makes you completely re-evaluate the way you see the world. At least that’s the effect it had on me. I now believe very strongly in re-incarnation. Or perhaps I always have and just didn’t realize it, because I haven’t had a change of religion or anything. Rather I’ve managed to fit it all nicely within my current faith. Now I’m not saying I believe in it exactly as it’s presented in this book (it is a work of fiction, after all), but I do believe that we have all lived at least one life before this one. It just explains so much. Nightmares (dreams are always funny things, aren’t they), and inexplicable phobias—if you can’t understand why you’re so afraid of something in this life, it’s because of something that happened to you in a previous life. And when you meet someone and you feel as if you’ve known them forever, it’s because you actually have. (I’m not just talking about cliché romance here, either; I hope everyone has at least one good friend that you feel this way about.) It also clarifies why families are so important—as Daniel explains, you are born near people who you were close to before. (One soul may be alternately Daniel’s father or son, for instance.)

I love a book that is both entertaining and insightful. This one is highly recommended! 














Recommended for readers who like: time travel romances; historical fiction; The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; Twilight; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button



 

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