DNF Review: Unremembered (Jessica Brody)

Title: Unremembered
Series: Unremembered, Book 1
Author: Jessica Brody
Publisher: FSG
Release Date: March 5, 2013
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Science Fiction
Told: First Person, Present Tense
Format Read: ARC (EpicLibrarian)
Find It On: Goodreads
Summary: 

When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe.

Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. And no one can explain why her DNA and fingerprints can’t be found in a single database in the world.

Crippled by a world she doesn’t know, plagued by abilities she doesn’t understand, and haunted by a looming threat she can’t remember, Seraphina struggles to piece together her forgotten past and discover who she really is. But with every clue only comes more questions. And she’s running out of time to answer them.

Her only hope is a strangely alluring boy who claims to know her from before the crash. Who claims they were in love. But can she really trust him? And will he be able to protect her from the people who have been making her forget?

*          *          *

I did not finish this book. I reached Chapter 25 (a little over halfway) and could not bring myself to continue.

For the entire first half of the book, barely anything happens. Sera, the main character, "just wants a normal life," and absolutely refuses to believe anything unusual about herself. She runs away from the plot instead of towards it, and only when it literally ties her to a chair and shoves itself down her throat does she start at least listening. And this is only a few short chapters before I stopped reading - it takes half the book for her to start accepting that maybe she isn't normal. 

When the love interest comes along, she refuses to trust him, or even go near him - but I didn't feel any spark between them anyway. The promise of a "love unchanged" on the cover is nowhere to be seen in the first half, aside for a bit of tingling Sera quickly dismisses. Lately, publishers have been feeding us instant sexual attraction and tension, so comparatively this relationship felt downright cold. 

And the "big reveal" turned out to be the same-old, same-old. 

I did like the short, direct voice and chapters in the beginning, but as Sera became more familiar with the world the superb writing laxed. In the end I had read it all before, and with the threat of an abundance of flashbacks in my future, I did not continue.