“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

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

My name is Hope Arden, and you won’t know who I am. We’ve met before – a thousand times. But I am the girl the world forgets.

It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.

A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks straight through me and sees a stranger.

No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit – you will never remember who I am.

That makes my life tricky. But it also makes me dangerous . . .

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is the tale of the girl no one remembers. But this gripping story – of love and loss, of hope and despair, of living in the moment and dying to leave a mark – is novel that will stay with you for ever.

My Thoughts:

Okay, misleading. The cover image and the blurb make it sounds as though this book is about a girl, possibly a teen.

It’s not. It’s about a grown woman, probably mid-twenties — and if the age were the only issue that annoyed me, we’d be in much better shape here.

The premise of this book is actually fascinating. Hope cannot be remembered. People who see her day after day react each time as though they’re meeting a stranger. Hope is so unmemorable that she seems to create holes that the subconscious works to fill. Someone who had a delicious dinner with Hope will remember being at the restaurant — for a meal that they ate alone. She can disappear in any crowd, because as soon as she’s out of sight, she’s literally out of mind.

The parts of the book that work best are about Hope’s inner life and how it is to be in the world so utterly alone, absolutely free of any restrictions or responsibilities, yet with no connections that last longer than a few hours. It makes sense that ultimately Hope would become a gifted thief. You can’t exactly hold down a steady job when each day your boss thinks you’re someone completely new… and it’s easy to get away with crimes when eyewitnesses never remember seeing you.

The plot of the book centers around a creepy app called Perfection, encouraging people to become “perfect” through an endless cycle of feedback on their habits, choices, purchases, and more. Hope becomes obsessed with tracking down the people who profit from Perfection and hurting them, and ends up involved in international espionage as part of a very long manhunt. Unfortunately, much of Hope’s journey has to do with her vendetta against Perfection, and it’s confusing and distracting and really, very disjointed.

Frankly, this book was a slog to get through. Like I said, the concept of Hope’s inability to be remembered is pretty mind-warping stuff — but the plot ends up in a pointless, long drawn-out crime caper, and the writing seems to consist mainly of strings of phrases with a noticeable lack of verbs.

I might have enjoyed this book more if it were about 100 pages shorter, but even so, the entire crime story left me cold. Terrific concept, weak execution. I didn’t hate the book, but I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it either.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Sudden Appearance of Hope
Author: Claire North
Publisher: Redhook
Publication date: May 17, 2016
Length: 468 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Library

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