Awake by Natasha Preston

Awake by Natasha Preston(Cover courtesy of Goodreads.)

Scarlett doesn’t remember anything before the age of five. Her parents say it’s from the trauma of seeing her house burn down, and she accepts the life they’ve created for her without question—until a car accident causes Scarlett to start remembering pieces of an unfamiliar past.

When a new guy moves into town, Scarlett feels an instant spark. But Noah knows the truth of Scarlett’s past, and he’s determined to shield her from it…because Scarlett grew up in a cult called Eternal Light, controlled by her biological parents.

And they want her back.

[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

One of the things that sort of bugs me when I read YA (or really anything in the urban fantasy genre) is that a lot of the main characters find out about magic from someone else.  Usually there’s a token skepticism that’s quickly washed away at the slightest hint that the other person might be right.  But what happens when a main character doesn’t believe in magic because there really is no magic?  Instead, there’s just a bunch of crazy people in a cult that want to sacrifice her in an insane attempt at immortality.

While I like the general idea for the story quite a bit, Awake was disappointing in that it followed all of the usual high school romance tropes.  A more popular best friend that the main character slut-shames?  Check.  New guy in school conveniently has the same schedule as the main character?  Check.  They live reasonably close together and are sat together on the first day of classes so they get to know each other?  Check and double check.  And then they fall into a cheesy teen romance that develops over the course of a week?  Yep.  I think we’ve hit almost all of the main high school tropes and that’s what really drags this book down.  Natasha Preston has a great premise with some very interesting insights into the psychology of cults but it’s just lost in the horde of clichés dumped on you right in the beginning.  It’s really sad in that respect.

Scarlett is an unremarkable narrator.  She says it’s weird that she doesn’t have memories before the age of four and everyone around her seems horrified at the idea.  But in the real world?  People would go, “Oh, that’s weird” and move on with their lives, not try to get her to see a therapist and bend over backwards to find those ‘lost’ memories.  Most people I know don’t have memories from before they were around the age of 3 or closer to 4 so I really don’t see how unusual that is.  It’s sort of like Preston was trying to create suspense where there was none instead of focusing on creating suspense in a more believable way.  Other than her weird fixation about not having memories from before she was 4, Scarlett doesn’t stand out at all.  She doesn’t really have any notable hobbies or interests other than Noah once she meets him.  She’s just boring.  Noah is a little more interesting because of his Eternal Light background and his conflicted feelings about love versus duty but other than that he’s a pretty stereotypical love interest.  Generically attractive, somewhat athletic and of course a little bit sheltered.  The perfect boring boy for the perfect boring girl.

As I said earlier, what I did like about the book is that Awake did have a great premise in theory.  I love that Natasha Preston sort of takes the trope of the narrator discovering they have an amazing background and turns that on its head.  It’s really refreshing after a string of fairly decent YA novels with the same boring premise of “girl discovers she has magical powers from a boy who was sent to save her”.  Although I don’t want to give too many plot points away, once we actually meet the members of the Eternal Light cult, it’s very interesting from a psychology perspective.  They engage in highly complex rituals and they’re almost completely beholden to their leaders under threat of violence.  Most people don’t seem to need violence to conform, however, as they’re very glad to have a purpose in life.  Even if it means sacrificing another human being.

In the end, Awake was a fairly decent book ruined by too many clichés and predictable plot twists.  It had a great premise that got lost in that avalanche of tropes and while there was some suspense near the end of the novel, I never felt especially compelled to turn the page to find out what happened next.  Really, it was just boring and unremarkable.  Another book that you may read once and then completely forget a few hours after reading it.  It wasn’t terrible and it wasn’t great; it was just in that middle ground that leaves you feeling unsatisfied.

I give this book 3/5 stars.

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