As I Wake (YA)

As I Wake. Elizabeth Scott. 2011. September 2011. Penguin. 224 pages.

Wake up.
I'm in bed. Sheets and blankets tucked around me, my legs sprawled out like I've fallen. No light in the room except faint yellow and a darker, colder gleam shining through the window, its curtains only partly closed.
Where I am?
I don't know these sheets, this bed, this room.
I look down at myself, see soft fabric wrapping me from neck to knees. My feet are bare.
There are dark shapes all around.

You never quite know what you're going to get with an Elizabeth Scott novel. This certainly wasn't Bloom or Perfect You or Living Dead Girl or Grace. Then again, that's one of the things that I love about Elizabeth Scott. She never stops surprising me.

As I Wake is part mystery, part science fiction novel. Ava, our heroine, wakes up one day without her memory. There's a woman, Jane, claiming to be her mom. There's a group of teens claiming to be her best friends--Greer, Sophy, Olivia. There's a cute guy, Ethan, whom her friends tell her is her crush. But Ava remembers nothing. There's not a single memory to match her with the life she's supposedly lived. But it's not just that she has no memories of being Ava, it's that she has memories of being a different Ava. The memories that come to her, well, they just don't fit in with what she knows about Ava. Certain people are triggering memories--just not the right memories. So what's going on? That's the mystery Ava and readers have to solve...

I enjoyed this one. I can't say I understood it all while I was reading. I can't even say I'm sure that I understand it now after finishing it and thinking about it for a couple of hours. But was it a compelling read? Yes.

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews