False Memory by Dan Krokos
Official Summary: “Miranda wakes up alone on a park bench with no memory. In her panic, she releases a mysterious energy that incites pure terror in everyone around her. Except Peter, a boy who isn’t at all surprised by Miranda’s shocking ability.
Left with no choice but to trust this stranger, Miranda discovers she was trained to be a weapon and is part of an elite force of genetically-altered teens who possess flawless combat skills and powers strong enough to destroy a city. But adjusting to her old life isn’t easy—especially with Noah, the boyfriend she can’t remember loving.
Then Miranda uncovers a dark truth that sets her team on the run. Suddenly her past doesn’t seem to matter…when there may not be a future.
Dan Krokos’ debut is a tour-de-force of non-stop action that will leave readers begging for the next book in this bold and powerful new series.”
With False Memory, Dan Krokos has started a truly intense new series that opens with Miranda on a park bench with no memory of anything that happened before she woke up. Though she has no memory of her prior life, she quickly realizes that she is far from an ordinary girl when she inadvertently triggers a panic in the surrounding crowd by releasing an energy she neither remembers nor can control. She quickly realizes that she has no choice but to trust a stranger who claims that he knows her and has, in fact, grown up with her. While this claim seems incredible, her fear of her own power and her desire to regain her memory leads her to follow him, though ultimately, he introduces her to at least as many new questions as he is able to answer. Once Miranda agrees to trust him, she learns that she is, in fact, part of the secret group of teens that have been raised to have the power to incite fear and panic through their own thoughts. After years of training, the group is now on the verge of being used as a weapon and they must all choose how to respond to this.
From the first scene of this book, it is a non-stop action adventure. Krokos does a great job of making the reader feel Miranda’s continual sense of uncertainty and confusion in the face of her amnesia. While she does slowly learn about her past throughout the book, neither she nor the audience know the full story until the very end and even then there are many gaps in her knowledge (that will hopefully be clarified in future volumes of the series). The book seems in many ways to flow from one fight scene to the next without an opportunity for the reader to so much as catch their breathe and Krokos does not shy away from the violence that this implies, including somewhat graphic details throughout.
For fans of heart-pounding action, this book, the first in a new series, will definitely not disappoint. The action scenes are well-written and exciting, while the story includes plenty of interest to science fiction fans. While I felt that the details of the program that Miranda is a part of could have been better developed, part of the reason for this deficiency is that the entire story is told from Miranda’s point of view and she is supposed to be in the dark about much of this information herself. This book would be a perfect choice for fans of action adventure stories who want to find a series that also includes science fiction elements.
Check it Out: False Memory is being released today.
Readalike: Fans of this book should watch out for Krokos’ other upcoming series, Planet Thieves and will also likely enjoy Partials by Dan Wells or The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda.
Note: Review based on ARC from publisher.
