Review: Rememberers – C Edward Baldwin

 Rememberers #1

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

SYNOPSIS: For 19-year-old Kallie Hunt, everyday moments began feeling all too familiar. She had a sense that she’d lived them before. But that was crazy, right? Deja vu. That was kid’s stuff, right? Been there, done that, impossible. You got one shot at this life thing. One shot. You lived. You died. End of story.

But if that was true, then why would the government be interested in her? Why would priests literally be stalking her? How could a small town girl possibly have anything to do with saving humanity from terrorists and demons? And pray-tell, what does any of it have to do with her first love?

For Kallie Hunt, there would be no simple answers. Besides, nothing in life is ever really simple. Not good. Not evil. Not even love… – via Goodreads

This book had a description that sounded mildly interesting (note, I didn’t get the synopsis on Goodreads) and I thought that it had possible potential. It started off and wasn’t particularly engrossing, but I trudged along anyway. Soon there was a possibility that things would look up… we had the church, hidden secrets, some weird agencies with their “soldiers”, dead terrorists and all that, I could even start dealing with the stunted dialogue. But then, just as quickly, that was lost. I honestly wanted to enjoy this more than I did. When Kallie was introduced, there was nothing I found even remotely likeable or identifiable about her, and that is most likely what kept me even more distanced from this book. Exploring this whole déjà vu thing was something I was looking forward to. Admittedly, the memory biology and the majority of the psychology discussed and presented in this book was well researched, accurate, and explained in a fantastically simple manner, so as not to lose any readers, and I appreciated that. As a psychology student, I hate it when some books drag in some slap dash psychology and then they are either wrong or so complicated that it doesn’t make sense to the average reader eventually anyway. So things were on an even level, nothing too amazing, nothing too bland, just average, and I was alright with that. But before I could blink my eyes and adjust to the next thing, Kallie was actually the goddess Kali or otherwise the First Woman, her boyfriend was silly and not fleshed out, FBI agent Bennett was basically stalking Kallie for answers to terrorist plots, the whole religious secret society petered out, there was no real explanation as to Rememberers and demon possession all over the show. Johnny Swag never had me convinced about his religious ties and was creepy from the off, Seth was such an annoyance, and I found Josh to be the most entertaining character of the lot. I think the end also just did it in for me, and I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes. It was just a tad too over the top. Rememberers was ultimately incredibly flawed and I was a little let down when all was said and done. The book came across as very preachy, the writing didn’t always flow (sometimes it did and other times not at all) and the dialogue was not something that interested me, it didn’t come across as natural. The book was also much longer than it needed to be. Also, every time that things start to get interesting, you are ultimately disappointed because Baldwin teases with all these brutal things going down but never delivers. I suppose this book will be much more enjoyed by younger teens and people who haven’t read much, but it wasn’t my cup of tea, sadly.