Review: ‘Remember Me’ by Stacey Nash (Collective #2)

When all is lost, she must remember…

Anamae Gilbert managed to thwart The Collective and rescue her father, even though his mind is now a shell. Determined to stop Councilor Manvyke hurting her family again, she’s training to become an active resistance member and enjoying a growing romance. But things never sail along smoothly – Manvyke wants retribution. And Anamae’s name is high on his list.

After a blow to the head, she awakes in an unfamiliar location. Anamae can’t remember the last few weeks and she can’t believe the fascinating new technology she’s seeing. She’s the new kid at school and weapons training comes with ease, but something feels off. Why does the other new kid’s smile make her heart ache?

And why does she get the feeling these people are deadly?

I have been waiting for this book to come out for the past eight months, since I finished the first book in the series, Forget Me Not.  And when it did come out I read it in just over 24 hours — it would’ve been sooner except that I had to work. Pesky work! (Why can’t someone just pay me to read all day?)

Now, I need to start with a disclaimer: Stacey Nash is a very good friend of mine. I adore her and her writing. So in the interests of fairness and an unbiased review, I’ll follow up with this: I did see a handful of typoes throughout Remember Me. THERE, I SAID IT.

Now let me move onto all the things I loved about this book!

In a way I’m regretting giving Forget Me Not a five-star rating, because I feel like Remember Me deserves at least an extra half star. It’s because the first book is the discovery story, whereas in this second book we get to peel back additional layers of this interesting world and see what’s underneath.

You’ll see from reading the blurb that Anamae loses her memory and wakes up somewhere strange. I initially assumed she’d just forgotten all of her resistence friends (with amnesia they would be strange to her), so I was intrigued to discover she’d been taken by the Collective. This meant we got to see their world through a stranger’s eyes — in Forget Me Not they were a faceless, well, collective, but in Remember Me we see that it’s not all black and white after all. There are factions and an interesting, Illuminati-style creation myth.

The other thing we get in the sequel is a dual point of view, split between Anamae and her best friend, Will — who is still with the resistence fighters. He goes a little crazy at the start of Remember Me after Anamae is taken. In the same way that she rushed into danger to try and save her dad in the first book, he doesn’t exactly think through his actions in trying to save Mae. To give him credit, though, he does realise after a while that he’s behaving rashly, and since he loves Mae I forgave him.

My other favourite character in this book is Lilly, daughter of the resistance leader. I love how determined she was not to be over-protected by her father. I think when Mae breaks Will’s heart (which I’m just assuming is going to happen because she’s still all googly-eyed for Jax), Lilly would look after it and nurse it back to health.

Yes, I’m planning the futures of these characters. I told you I love this book!