Friday, November 24, 2017

The sudden appearance of Hope

The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North    468 pages

"Listen.
All the world forgets me. First my face, then my voice, then the consequences of my deeds.
So listen. Remember me."


In this story, told in first person through the eyes of our main character, Hope Arden is a woman that is forgettable.  At least, to anyone who has met her and then left her presence. At the age of sixteen, Hope noticed that there was a slow decline in people remembering her, including her own parents.  As an adult, Hope takes advantage of this strange condition and becomes a thief.  It makes her life tricky, although it also makes her quite dangerous.


When Hope meets a young woman and steals her phone, she learns about a product called Perfection, an app you put on your devices which tells you what to eat, what to buy, and essentially takes over your life in the pursuit of making you "Perfect." When the young woman commits suicide, Hope finds she is blaming Perfection and begins a relentless pursuit of the people who have created it.   

And that then leads you down the rabbit hole in a story that I found unforgettable. I loved that there was a character who was forgettable, and who worked that to her complete advantage (even when she is arrested at one point).  At first, it seems like a wonderful gift, although Hope points out that if she is injured and needs surgery, the surgeon better not need to take a break in the middle of surgery.  In her pursuit of the people running Perfection, Hope encounters some of the same characters again and again and at one point, tries working with one of them to restore her condition to normal, so that she may be remembered.

I liked this book a lot because I found Hope to be compelling, the premise to be interesting, the pace to be even, and the story to be pretty creative.  Definitely adding this to the list of "read again" books!

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