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ihateprozac 's review for:
The Forgetting
by Sharon Cameron
Based on premise alone, this book had the potential to rank among [b:Across the Universe|8235178|Across the Universe (Across the Universe, #1)|Beth Revis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1401852218s/8235178.jpg|13082532] and [b:Breathe|11544466|Breathe (Breathe, #1)|Sarah Crossan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1330286837s/11544466.jpg|16484181] as one of my fave YA dystopians, but ultimately it fell prey to slow pacing and a lack of description.
I say "lack of description" opposed to "lack of world building" because it wasn't just limited to world-building. Sure, there's a lot of confusion about what this world looks like, how the society functions, the threat keeping them inside the walls, so on and so forth, but it’s not just limited to that. Sharon Cameron doesn’t really describe situations as they occur either.
Our characters don’t trudge up a hill, huffing and puffing and dripping with sweat, they just walk and then suddenly they’re at the top. Our characters never have whispered conversations or strained arguments, they just talk at each other and the other person listens - if you’re really lucky, one of them might even occasionally make a weird face in response!
The lack of description of the world, the characters, and how they do what they’re do ultimately leads to a very confusing reading experience. It’s the fiction equivalent of buying a rip-off replica of a designer gown on Ebay: sure, it’s a dress and you could certainly put it on your body, but what you receive in the mail might more closely resemble a sparkly burlap sack than a luxurious Zac Posen gown. This novel is missing all the fine details that take the bare bones of a story and flesh it out into a fully formed universe.
The pacing was the final nail in the coffin. Had this story been filled with lush descriptions, complex characters, and entertaining conversations, I might have been able to forgive the first 150-200 pages where next to nothing happens. I was so close to putting this down after 158 pages and I never bail on books. I might put one down with months or years passing between reading sessions, but it’s rare that I’ll ever mentally file a novel away on the “never gonna finish” shelf. The beautiful cover, relatively large font, and my sense of curiosity and needing to finish what I start are the only things that propelled me forward. I knew it’d be a quick read and if I got through it, at least I’d know how it ended and it’d be another notch on my reading challenge belt.
I’m thankful I did push on as the story improved immensely from there! Sure, the descriptions were lacking just as much, but the story made leaps and bounds after the page 200 mark and things.actually.happened. We found out key truths behind the Forgetting and the Canaan civilisation, and we got a showdown with the "big bad" villain. Our protagonists unsurprisingly finally embarked on a romance and the attraction was even somewhat palpable at times. We got the major conflict you’d expect from a dystopian and our heroes saved the day.
It’s just a shame it was such a long, hard slog to get there.
I can see from Goodreads that Cameron is writing a sequel companion novel set several years after the events of this story, and it's safe to say that I won’t be picking that up in a rush. Even if this had been a well fleshed out compelling story with relatable characters and an interesting mythology, it was crafted as a standalone tale and left no cliffhangers to incite the reader to pick up a sequel. I don’t care about, so publishing houses need to stop trying to make series happen. They’re not going to happen.
Overall: The premise was super interesting but The Forgetting was let down by slow pacing and a lack of description and world building. It had the potential to be a great action-packed story - there were definitely some plot twists in there - but overall it felt like the dystopian equivalent of those Harry Potter chapters where they sit in the tent doing absolutely frakking nothing for 928392834 pages.
Beautiful hardcover edition though, so it’ll look nice on my shelf.
I say "lack of description" opposed to "lack of world building" because it wasn't just limited to world-building. Sure, there's a lot of confusion about what this world looks like, how the society functions, the threat keeping them inside the walls, so on and so forth, but it’s not just limited to that. Sharon Cameron doesn’t really describe situations as they occur either.
Our characters don’t trudge up a hill, huffing and puffing and dripping with sweat, they just walk and then suddenly they’re at the top. Our characters never have whispered conversations or strained arguments, they just talk at each other and the other person listens - if you’re really lucky, one of them might even occasionally make a weird face in response!
The lack of description of the world, the characters, and how they do what they’re do ultimately leads to a very confusing reading experience. It’s the fiction equivalent of buying a rip-off replica of a designer gown on Ebay: sure, it’s a dress and you could certainly put it on your body, but what you receive in the mail might more closely resemble a sparkly burlap sack than a luxurious Zac Posen gown. This novel is missing all the fine details that take the bare bones of a story and flesh it out into a fully formed universe.
The pacing was the final nail in the coffin. Had this story been filled with lush descriptions, complex characters, and entertaining conversations, I might have been able to forgive the first 150-200 pages where next to nothing happens. I was so close to putting this down after 158 pages and I never bail on books. I might put one down with months or years passing between reading sessions, but it’s rare that I’ll ever mentally file a novel away on the “never gonna finish” shelf. The beautiful cover, relatively large font, and my sense of curiosity and needing to finish what I start are the only things that propelled me forward. I knew it’d be a quick read and if I got through it, at least I’d know how it ended and it’d be another notch on my reading challenge belt.
I’m thankful I did push on as the story improved immensely from there! Sure, the descriptions were lacking just as much, but the story made leaps and bounds after the page 200 mark and things.actually.happened. We found out key truths behind the Forgetting and the Canaan civilisation, and we got a showdown with the "big bad" villain. Our protagonists unsurprisingly finally embarked on a romance and the attraction was even somewhat palpable at times. We got the major conflict you’d expect from a dystopian and our heroes saved the day.
It’s just a shame it was such a long, hard slog to get there.
I can see from Goodreads that Cameron is writing a sequel companion novel set several years after the events of this story, and it's safe to say that I won’t be picking that up in a rush. Even if this had been a well fleshed out compelling story with relatable characters and an interesting mythology, it was crafted as a standalone tale and left no cliffhangers to incite the reader to pick up a sequel. I don’t care about
Spoiler
people coming from Earth to check out their science projectOverall: The premise was super interesting but The Forgetting was let down by slow pacing and a lack of description and world building. It had the potential to be a great action-packed story - there were definitely some plot twists in there - but overall it felt like the dystopian equivalent of those Harry Potter chapters where they sit in the tent doing absolutely frakking nothing for 928392834 pages.
Beautiful hardcover edition though, so it’ll look nice on my shelf.