Awake by Natasha Preston

Awake by Natasha Preston

Goodreads Synopsis
Scarlett doesn’t remember anything before the age of five. Her parents say it’s from the trauma of seeing her house burn down, and she accepts the life they’ve created for her without question—until a car accident causes Scarlett to start remembering pieces of an unfamiliar past.

When a new guy moves into town, Scarlett feels an instant spark. But Noah knows the truth of Scarlett’s past, and he’s determined to shield her from it...because Scarlett grew up in a cult called Eternal Light, controlled by her biological parents.

And they want her back.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like this book. It had a good description and I was so looking forward to how it would play out. But then it started with insta-love and ended with Noah and Scarlett literally saying they would die for one another and it made me want to kill them both.

Literally everything written in the first half of the novel made me want to stop reading it. I can totally understand why people stopped reading at about 20% because there was nothing that was leading to the idea of the cult or Scarlett getting her memories back.

I am not going to talk about the slut-shaming and insta-love because it was the reason I did not enjoy this book at all. Everything else was shallow. There didn't seem to be much depth to the other characters or the entire cult. It didn't make sense why Donald and Fiona became the leaders of this cult so easily or what their actual beliefs really were. There was not much of an explanation to either of those. I also thought that there should have been more of Fiona being like "This is a hard decision, but it is one I know is necessary to make" instead of her basically being a cold hearted bitch.

I thought the last 10% was a little ridiculous and too convenient the way everything worked out. I wanted more suspense and thrills while reading this and it just did not deliver.

The memory thing - I don't understand why it was a thing. Even if Scarlet had remembered her life before she was four, her parents could have played it up to just being a child and imagining things rather than not mentioning it to her at all. And if her life was in that much danger, her parents should have told her the truth. No ifs ands or buts. 

I feel like so much emphasis was put on a lot of random things in the front half that had no bearing on the second. It was just messy and sloppy and I was very disappointed.

Overall: 1.5/5 stars for this one. I thought it had a better summary than execution. I wanted to like this one, I just couldn't.