Book Review: As I Wake by Elizabeth Scott

Title: As I Wake

Author: Elizabeth Scott

# Of Pages: 269

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Publication Date: September 15, 2011

Level: Young Adult 

Rating: 1 Heart

Synopsis

(From Amazon.com)

Ava is welcomed home from the hospital by a doting mother, lively friends, and a crush finally beginning to show interest. There's only one problem: Ava can't remember any of them - and can't shake the eerie feeling that she's not who they say she is.

Ava struggles to break through her amnesiac haze as she goes through the motions of high-school life, but the memories that surface take place in a very different world, where Ava and familiar-faced friends are under constant scrutiny and no one can be trusted. Ava doesn't know what to make of these visions, or of the boy who is at the center of them all, until he reappears in her life and offers answers . . . but only in exchange for her trust.

My Verdict

I couldn’t wait to finish this book! I knew things were gonna be bad when the first few chapters were nothing more than the main character, Ava saying Who Am I? Where Am I? over and over, and over, AND over. The one thing this book had going for it was the mystery, the only reason I kept on reading. I forced myself through it in hopes of gaining some answers, answers that unfortunately, never came.

Ava wakes up in a bed, in a house, she doesn’t remember. The doctors say she has amnesia but Ava doesn’t believe them. That’s because she remembers her life, just not this one.  She remembers the people around her, they just aren’t the same versions of them that she remembers. This book was way more Sci Fi than I was expecting considering it wasn’t labeled Sci Fi at all. It has to do with alternate universes and people traveling from one to another. This aspect is never really explained and just leaves you confused and wondering.

Even though Ava remembers some things from her other life, she doesn’t remember much else. This leaves for a very simple and boring thought cycle/dialogue that makes it impossible to get to know Ava on a deeper level and actually connect with her at all. All the characters were this way: simple, boring. Her three friends, Sophie, Greer, and Olivia were so bizarre, I couldn’t really understand why any of them were even friends. All their conversations were stupid and pointless, I couldn’t stand the parts they were in and constantly wondered why Ava even stayed friends with them since she didn’t like them much herself.

The relationship between Ava and Morgan is one we learn about mostly through memories. The whole thing is awkward and vague. For a love that is so strong it transcends universes and memory loss I just wasn’t seeing it, or feeling it. 

All I can think of is all the other books I could have read instead of this one. I wish I had.