Book Review: Remembrance by Michelle Madow

Remembrance by Michelle Madow

Series: Transcend Time Saga #1

Published: July 27th, 2011

Publisher: Dreamscape Publishing

301 pages (paperback)

Genre: Young adult romance

Acquired this book: From the author in exchange for an honest review

Warning: may include spoilers

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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.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I loved the concept of this book - reincarnation, true love - I’m a romance junkie, so I thought the idea behind this book was great. I also thought it was really cool that the author got the idea from a Taylor Swift video. And I wanted to like this book so badly - it was one of the few review books I'd actually heard of and had been eager to read. But, unfortunately, it just didn't do much for me.

I didn’t enjoy the characters at all. I thought Liz was whiny and self-involved, and I couldn’t relate to her on any level. Her boyfriend Jeremy was a jerk, her best friend Chelsea was even whinier than Liz, and Drew was pretty much a jerk, too. Jeremy was always putting Liz down and picking at her about everything she said and did. Liz was so irritable, and would get annoyed with Jeremy over every little thing, but she just put up with him treating her like crap. The characters felt very shallow and one dimensional to me. There was no development - I didn’t feel like any of the characters really grew or learned anything.

I thought there would be more about Liz and Drew’s past lives, but I enjoyed what we did learn as it was very slowly revealed. The whole book was very slow and not much actually happened.

I enjoyed Madow’s straightforward writing style. It was hard to believe she’s a debut author. The cover was beautiful. I’ve always been obsessed with masquerade balls, so the cover drew my attention immediately. I thought it was cool that Liz and Drew’s past lives were in Regency era England. I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice so the dozens of P&P references were sort of lost on me, but the book has been on my TBR list for years, and it made me want to read it even more...so I guess that's a nice side benefit!

Despite the fact that I didn’t like the characters, I am curious to see where the story goes, and will eventually read book 1.5, Vengeance - Chelsea’s story - and then decide about book 2 from there. 

~Marie