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A review by allyriadayne
Archetype by M. D. Waters
3.0
I liked it in the way it's obviously just a setup for more books. It was pretty light on the details, never going too deep or straying from the protagonist's perceptions, but this didn't give the book any favours. I would have prefer for it to be a standalone and fill in much more of the details it left out, flesh it out more. But alas, it was not.
Archetype tells the story of a woman waking up to find she has no memory before her "accident". She no only doesn't know her name, she doesn't know how to behave or eat or what words mean. A total wipe out. But is she? Her husbands tries to help her remember their past life together, their marriage and ambitions but she keeps dreaming of another man, another life, another cause. The start of the novel grips you and leaves you wondering who exactly is the protagonist and why did she find herself in a hospital not remembering anything, not even the husband who so lovingly tries to make her comfortable every step of the way.
The second part is well, different. Suddenly everything escalates so quickly it doesn't give you a moment to breath; she's suddenly remembering her past, the man she loves, then "joining" the resistance then infodumps are throw in for good measure about the science-y parts and then it's over. Like I said in the beginning, the book would have benefited from slowing down the second part and actually making the characters FEEL somthing before making them act when there's no more time. The structure is pretty much every dystopia-with-a-resistance YA novel so those parts bore, which shouldn't have! because the concept was actually interesting andI would have liked to have a proper explanation about it.
Anyway, Archetype gives you a taste of the question "am I myself because I have all the memories of my life or because I exist inside my body?". Good questions to ponder, if only the book had meditated on them.
Archetype tells the story of a woman waking up to find she has no memory before her "accident". She no only doesn't know her name, she doesn't know how to behave or eat or what words mean. A total wipe out. But is she? Her husbands tries to help her remember their past life together, their marriage and ambitions but she keeps dreaming of another man, another life, another cause. The start of the novel grips you and leaves you wondering who exactly is the protagonist and why did she find herself in a hospital not remembering anything, not even the husband who so lovingly tries to make her comfortable every step of the way.
The second part is well, different. Suddenly everything escalates so quickly it doesn't give you a moment to breath; she's suddenly remembering her past, the man she loves, then "joining" the resistance then infodumps are throw in for good measure about the science-y parts and then it's over. Like I said in the beginning, the book would have benefited from slowing down the second part and actually making the characters FEEL somthing before making them act when there's no more time. The structure is pretty much every dystopia-with-a-resistance YA novel so those parts bore, which shouldn't have! because the concept was actually interesting andI would have liked to have a proper explanation about it.
Anyway, Archetype gives you a taste of the question "am I myself because I have all the memories of my life or because I exist inside my body?". Good questions to ponder, if only the book had meditated on them.