{Synopsis} – What isn’t written, isn’t remembered. Even your crimes.
Nadia lives in the city of Canaan, where life is safe and structured, hemmed in by white stone walls and no memory of what came before. But every twelve years the city descends into the bloody chaos of the Forgetting, a day of no remorse, when each person’s memories – of parents, children, love, life, and self – are lost. Unless they have been written.
In Canaan, your book is your truth and your identity, and Nadia knows exactly who hasn’t written the truth. Because Nadia is the only person in Canaan who has never forgotten.
But when Nadia begins to use her memories to solve the mysteries of Canaan, she discovers truths about herself and Gray, the handsome glassblower, that will change her world forever. As the anarchy of the Forgetting approaches, Nadia and Gray must stop an unseen enemy that threatens both their city and their own existence – before the people can forget the truth. And before Gray can forget her.
{My thoughts} – I was really interested in reading this book based on the premise to which it is written. According to the back story every 12 years everyone in Canaan forget everything about themselves. They have some idea about who they are because they wear books that help to tell their life stories and when they fill a book up it gets cataloged in the archives. The thought of being able to forget yourself, your family, all the bad that has happened to you or that you have done in your life seems like an interesting concept to me. I often wonder what it would be like if my life was different, if I had chosen things differently or if certain things hadn’t of happened to me. I am sure that everyone has wondered things like this before. This book gives you an idea of what could happen if you weren’t forced to remember, if you had the option to choose to forget. If you had the ability to change your story, although your story may or may not change for the better anything is possible when you chose to forget, or choose to help yourself remember.
Nadia and her family however have an even bigger obstacle. They seem to have the ability to remember somethings from before the forgetting. Because of this their lives are lived slightly different then everyone elses. Nadia learns throughout the pages of the book that Canaan isn’t what the population has come to believe it is. She begins to understand their are things that have been hidden from everyone and she begins to question everyone and everything around her. She learns that she has allies and the strangest of places and enemies in some of the most uncommon places. She learns that there is more to her history and to the history of Canaan then she or any other person living there has been allowed to believe. She learns that she has the ability to change things and that is exactly what she sets out to do, but with a little extra help.
If you’d like to know what happens you will have to read the book, as for me I am going to be curling up with book two very shortly.
I highly recommend this book for anyone that enjoys dystopian novels. This one like so many I have read in the past was so easy to fall in love with. The world building is wonderfully written and the characters are both likeable and unlikeable. I really did enjoy this book and hope that others will as well.
Final Conclusion: 5 Star Rating.
