The One Memory of Flora Banks

March 6, 2017
Flora Banks, 17, has anterograde amnesia, which has left her unable to make new memories. Flora remembers her life around and before age 10, but she must use messages written on her skin, her phone, and in a diarylike notebook to remind her of who she is and to fill in the details of recent history. Everything changes when Flora retains her memory of a kiss on the beach with Drake, her best friend Paige’s boyfriend who is leaving to study in the Arctic. In her first book for teens, British author Barr creates a realistic portrayal of Flora’s condition through her repetitive and confused first-person narration (“There was a party. Drake is leaving. Paige is sad. I am seventeen. I need to be brave”). Flora fears she will never be “normal,” but Barr carefully seeds her story with hope while challenging perceptions of normalcy. Flora’s situation may be singular, but her desire for autonomy should speak loudly to teens in the midst of their own journeys into adulthood. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kate Cooper, Curtis Brown.

April 1, 2017
A white British girl with anterograde amnesia travels to the Arctic to chase after a boy whose kiss has stayed in her memory when nothing else has.Seventeen-year-old Flora Banks cannot remember anything that happened before she was 10 years old, when doctors removed a tumor from her brain. Her memory resets itself every few hours, and ever present written reminders help orient her to her reality. Until one evening, when her best friend's boyfriend, Drake (also white), kisses her, and she finds that she can remember every detail of their brief time together. The next day Drake leaves to study abroad in Norway, leaving Flora clinging to her singular new memory and the desperate hope that Drake holds the key to her recovery. When her parents inadvertently leave her home alone, she takes matters into her own hands: she travels to Norway to look for Drake. Despite difficulties and delusions, she meets charming strangers who help her along the way and ends up discovering hidden parts of herself amid the icy, beautiful Arctic. Slowly, memories of her past begin to filter through and puzzle pieces fall into place, revealing that there is more to Flora's story than she realizes. Flora's voice is frank and childlike, yet her verve and determination help to drive forward a necessarily cyclical plot. An affecting portrayal of living with amnesia and discovering one's own agency. (Fiction. 14-18)

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May 1, 2017

Gr 8 Up-Flora Banks, 17, who lives in Penzanze, England, has only one memory: kissing her best friend's boyfriend, Drake Andreassen, on the beach the night before he leaves for Svalbard, Norway. Flora has anterograde amnesia. Her memory is spotty at best and lasts from one to three hours until it resets. Because of this, Flora writes everything down on her arm, which is tattooed with her mantra, "Be Brave." But why does she remember this kiss? Flora's parents leave in a hurry to help her dying brother, who lives in France with his partner. Flora's best friend, Paige, is supposed to stay with her during this time, but Paige refuses to help her because of the kiss. After receiving adoring emails from Drake, Flora is off to Norway on her own to find him, only to discover the truth about not only Drake but also herself. Flora must verbally repeat what she believes to be true over and over. While this detail may make the book sound repetitive, it truly allows teens to understand the protagonist's condition. The story is fast-paced, and even reluctant readers will be engaged by Flora and her family, who are in dire need of an intervention. Ultimately, this title will leave readers with a sense of hope and faith in the human spirit. VERDICT True fans will await the possibility of a sequel. A strong choice for YA shelves.-Karen Alexander, Lake Fenton High School, Linden, MI

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2017
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* A sufferer of anterograde amnesia, 17-year-old Flora has not been able to create new memories since doctors removed a brain tumor. Every day, she wakes up forgetting everything after age 10 and must use a complex array of notes, phone messages, and maps to negotiate the world. But something happens on the night of Drake's going-away party. She remembers meeting him on the beach, and she remembers kissing him. Desperate to know how and why, Flora assembles a planone Post-it note at a timeto travel from England to Svalbard, an island near the North Pole, where Drake works as a research assistant. What follows is a remarkable odyssey of an atypical unreliable narratorone who cannot rely on herself. Barr has crafted an enthralling story reminiscent of the film Memento, placing readers in the position of Flora's memory. We follow what happens to her across scenes, yet are forced to watch her continually lose sense of time and place. One of the book's driving forces is the hope that Flora will break out of these cycles, using both her ingenuity and grit. The one message that cannot be eraseda tattoo on her handencapsulates the book and the character perfectly: Flora, be brave. A deftly, compassionately written mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 1, 2017
Ever since, as she's been told, Flora had a brain tumor removed when she was eleven, she's been unable to make new memories. She can remember things for only a few hours and must negotiate her life by means of copious notes and reminders (written on Post-its and notebooks and all over her hands and arms) and the care of her parents and best friend, Paige. Then, when she's seventeen, she kisses Paige's boyfriend Drake on the eve of his departure from Cornwall to Svalbard, Norway. Somehow, that kiss stays in Flora's memory, and Flora is convinced that Drake is the answer to healing her anterograde amnesia. Defying her parents, she follows him north--her quest fraught with uncertainties, and not just because of her amnesia. Barr sets herself quite a challenge with this first-person narrator, who can't remember anything much about herself from one hour to the next. The resulting story is a subtle progression of repetition and variation; declarative statements that often repeat but even so build toward an increasingly mysterious, then revelatory, journey. Cumulatively, Flora wins us with her spirit and bravery--a bravery deepened by her intense, amnesia-induced naivete and dogged commitment to her one memory. Barr's tale mingles Oliver Sacks-like scientific curiosity with Arctic adventure and YA novel in a way that's equally unsettling, winsome, and terrifying. deirdre f. baker

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2017
When seventeen-year-old Flora, who has anterograde amnesia, kisses Drake, the kiss somehow stays in her memory. Convinced that Drake is the answer to healing her amnesia, Flora follows him to Svalbard on a quest fraught with uncertainties. The resulting story is a subtle progression of repetition and variation; declarative statements that often repeat build toward a mysterious, then revelatory, journey.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)