Review: Terrific hook, but hard to sustain
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 2, 2013
REMEMBER ME (Weaver Series), by Dena Nicotra, grabbed me on the very first page.  The 19-year-old narrator, Josephine, lives a quiet life in a small town in Arkansas. She is an introspective, kind, but very lonely girl who has recently lost the one person she felt truly understood her: her beloved grandfather. As sad as Joey is, her widowed grandmother has all but lost her mind to grief, devastating the girl even more. In a misguided attempt to help Joey and Mamaw get over their sadness, Joey's parents have had the grandparents' house by the bayou torn down, destroying the girl's most cherished refuge.But Joey's unhappiness is more acute than anyone but her grandfather knew, for she has an inexplicable and isolating talent. She can manipulate time - past, present, or future - to cause, prevent, or alter the nature of any thing or any event she imagines. Rather like Sookie Stackhouse in Charmaine Harris' novels, Joey has learned through difficult experience that it's best to keep her strange abilitiies to herself. Fortunately, she always strives to be helpful, and except for an occasional, vague sense of déjà vu, people remember only Joey's tweaks, not the alternatives. However, even Joey cannot always foresee the consequences of the changes she makes.When she begins to sense a troubling void in her recent past, accompanied by an urgent voice speaking in her mind, Joey cannot ignore the compulsion to discover who and what she is. She also determines to find the mysterious young man who calls to her in silence. She leaves Arkansas behind and instinctively heads to Los Angeles.Up to this point in the story, I was riveted. When Joey arrives in Los Angeles, however, REMEMBER ME becomes a bit scattered and the pacing suffers. It's still interesting and imaginative - I especially enjoyed Joey "decorating" her apartment - but the LA characters are not as compelling as Joey herself. It's difficult at times to understand why, if Joey is passionately devoted to one man, she falls so easily for another. The author addresses this, but not, I thought, completely satisfactorily. It seemed more a device to set up the choice a conflicted character must make at the story's climax.I did really like this book, though, and had the second half of the story been as interesting as the first half, I'd have given it 5 stars. It's well-written, and there are only a few typos - mostly toward the end, which was perhaps a bit rushed. Nevertheless, the story is entertaining and Joey is a very appealing character. I would recommend this book for older teens and adults.