YA Book Review:
The Memory Visit
The Memory Visit, by Jenny Lynn Lambert, is a thought-provoking, fast paced page turner that leaves the reader wanting more.
The novel centers around Rain, a seventeen-year-old girl looking for answers about a memory of her brother dying. In NorCoast, our seemingly post-apocalyptic future which is low on water, one can venture to the past to relive memories as a way to escape the troubles of the present. Only when Rain tries to find answers about her brother, she picks up a thread of the past involving conspiracy, her brother's murder, and more sinister plots. Through her trips to the past, Rain learns she's a Mark, a person who can actually change a memory and therefore alter the past up to the moment she went back (her present). In multiple attempts to save her brother, and multiple threads of possible lives, Rain comes to learn that the people behind it all won't stop until she's dead and that she and Evin, no matter what thread they appear in, are linked by more than just destiny. Rain must put her heart and future on the line to save who she loves most, even though that doesn't seem clear-cut anymore.
The dystopian world was well-built from the dry barren lands where the outcasts live to the the Utopian lush greens of Oasis. The corporate-run country is not too far off the mark for the US's possible future. The characters are well-developed. Rain is strong, defiant, and quick thinking--not your damsel in distress. Rio and Evin are both adorable in very different ways and the tension between Evin and Rain is palpable, letting readers see without dialogue how deeply they feel for each other. Rio played a smaller part than expected through the second half of the book, but I was glad not to see a typical love triangle.
The complex and changing timelines and pasts might be difficult for some readers if they don't pay attention to detail, but I had no issues. That being said, I have always loved time travel novels. They blow my mind with how changes in the past echo into the present and Lambert does an excellent job of showing us what can truly happen if we alter the past--both the good and terrible things that could result. The open ending of this book shows it will be part of a series, and I'm eager to see more of the same timeline jumping, past changing, and corruption fighting plot until Rain can have a happily-ever-after future.
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