REVIEW: "REMEMBRANCE" BY MICHELLE MADOW - Juhina

Title: Remembrance

Author: Michelle Madow

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis (via Goodread)

New Hampshire high school junior Lizzie Davenport has been reincarnated from Regency Era, England … but she doesn’t know it yet.

Then Drew Carmichael transfers into Lizzie’s school at the beginning of the year, and she feels a connection to him, almost like she knows him. She can’t stop thinking about him, but whenever she tries talking with him about the mysteries behind her feelings, he makes it clear that he wants nothing to do with her. Reaching him is even more difficult because she has a boyfriend, Jeremy, who has started to become full of himself after being elected co-captain of the varsity soccer team, and her flirtatious best friend Chelsea starts dating Drew soon after his arrival. So why can’t she seem to get him out of her mind?

Even though Lizzie knows she should let go of her fascination with Drew, the pair of them soon find that fighting fate isn’t going to be easy.

My thoughts and review:

I LOVE books that deal with unrequited love, forbidden love (in the sense of girl being in love with her bestfriend’s boyfriend, etc) and basically the tension and awkwardness that manifest in some of the scenes between the protagonist and the other ‘guy’. The synopsis of this book raised my curiosity and i had to read it! my sister had it on her ibooks library so i borrowed it from her and started reading. I loved the beginning, exactly the type of book i always look forward to read, girl has a boyfriend, boyfriend being careless and too busy for her, girl meets new guy and instantly falls for him, new guy is taken! oh no! *giggles*.

One thing that kept me from being totally invested in the story is its similarity to pride and prejudice, the names of the characters all sounded too familiar “Lizzie – Elizabeth, Drew – Darcy, etc), ive seen too many pride and prejudice remakes and i hoped this wasn’t one. So throughout the whole story I kept on wondering whether it’ll be another pride and prejudice remake (which im glad it wasn’t at the end).  I really liked Jeremy, throughout the book i had a hidden hope that he would end up with lizzie, i just felt really bad for him because he was in the way of fate. I kept on hoping Lizzie would give him the explanation he deserved but it never came, which is why I was frustrated at Lizzie.

I give Chelsea kudos for being so level headed about Lizzie and Drew being together, she was a good friend to Lizzie and im just sad that she didn’t get her happy ending, nor did Jeremy. (I guess you can tell I loved Chelsea and Jeremy more than Lizzie and Drew  ).

I honestly loved the beginning of the book more and the ending for me felt a bit unfinished, but it was an entertaining and fun read; One that i would recommend to people who love contemporary retellings and destined love. I would definitely pick up any new book that Michelle Madow writes. She’s got a way to make you keep reading.