RELEASE DATE: June 1st
Michelle Squiccimara says:
"I groaned when I read the first lines of My Name is Memory: "I have lived more than a thousand years. I have died countless times. I forget precisely how many times. My memory is an extraordinary thing, but it is not perfect." As I am still trying to heal the mental wounds inflicted upon me by the Twilight series and Audrey Niffenger's The TIme Traveler's Wife, I couldn't stand to contend with another tortured love affair between two emotionally stunted people with divergent world views. However, as a fan of Ms. Brashares and devotee to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series in my younger days, I decided to push my preconceived notions aside and give this book a shot.
Daniel and Lucy are classmates in high school and have harbored romantic feelings for one another which are revealed in a most unusual way. Daniel reveals to Lucy that they, or their souls rather, have known each other for centuries. Clumsily, he explains that he has been searching for Sophia (the name he has dubbed Lucy's soul) throughout all of his lives, spanning the globe for nearly one thousand years. This admission, naturally, terrifies Lucy who had pictured their union to begin with a less intense profession of love. The two part ways and in the chaos of end of the year festivities for the high school seniors, Daniel is never given the opportunity to explain himself to Lucy/Sophia.
The subsequent chapters are written from Daniel and Lucy's point of view; Daniel's from the past, explaining his gift (or curse) of memory and his former lives, and Lucy's, following her through her college career whilst trying to gloss over her bout of unrequited love. When the timelines have matched, a soul from Daniel's past has been revealed as the impediment to the inevitable union between himself and Lucy/Sophia. While I expected a lot of sighing and pining from both sides in an obnoxious teenage way, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of character and outside interests each party took on when biding their time. Brashares writes convincingly as worldly, polyglot Daniel and as an emotionally vulnerable college student Lucy. It is easy to underestimate a youthful readership with empty descriptions of people, places, and things, but Brashares has more faith and pushes even a passive reader to wonder about ancient tools and dead languages.
Since finishing My Name is Memory, I learned that it is the first installment of a three part series so Brashares has succeeded in leaving her readers wanting more. This makes a lot of sense since i was so disappointed with the ending. Without revealing too much, the book came to such a shocking and abrupt end that I felt as if the last chapter had been omitted. While I had little interest in involving myself in another book series, I am looking forward to the coming volumes to sate my appetite for a fast paced and convincing love story."
