A white British girl with anterograde amnesia travels to the Arctic to chase after a boy whose kiss has stayed in her memory when nothing else has.Seventeen-year-old Flora Banks cannot remember anything that happened before she was 10 years old, when doctors removed a tumor from her brain. Her memory resets itself every few hours, and ever present written reminders help orient her to her reality. Until one evening, when her best friend's boyfriend, Drake (also white), kisses her, and she finds that she can remember every detail of their brief time together. The next day Drake leaves to study abroad in Norway, leaving Flora clinging to her singular new memory and the desperate hope that Drake holds the key to her recovery. When her parents inadvertently leave her home alone, she takes matters into her own hands: she travels to Norway to look for Drake. Despite difficulties and delusions, she meets charming strangers who help her along the way and ends up discovering hidden parts of herself amid the icy, beautiful Arctic. Slowly, memories of her past begin to filter through and puzzle pieces fall into place, revealing that there is more to Flora's story than she realizes. Flora's voice is frank and childlike, yet her verve and determination help to drive forward a necessarily cyclical plot. An affecting portrayal of living with amnesia and discovering one's own agency. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* A sufferer of anterograde amnesia, 17-year-old Flora has not been able to create new memories since doctors removed a brain tumor. Every day, she wakes up forgetting everything after age 10 and must use a complex array of notes, phone messages, and maps to negotiate the world. But something happens on the night of Drake's going-away party. She remembers meeting him on the beach, and she remembers kissing him. Desperate to know how and why, Flora assembles a plan one Post-it note at a time to travel from England to Svalbard, an island near the North Pole, where Drake works as a research assistant. What follows is a remarkable odyssey of an atypical unreliable narrator one who cannot rely on herself. Barr has crafted an enthralling story reminiscent of the film Memento, placing readers in the position of Flora's memory. We follow what happens to her across scenes, yet are forced to watch her continually lose sense of time and place. One of the book's driving forces is the hope that Flora will break out of these cycles, using both her ingenuity and grit. The one message that cannot be erased a tattoo on her hand encapsulates the book and the character perfectly: Flora, be brave. A deftly, compassionately written mystery.--Suarez, Reinhardt Copyright 2017 Booklist

Gr 9 Up-Flora Banks, 17, has a condition called anterograde amnesia from a brain tumor she had at age 10. She has only memories from before she was 10 until she kisses Drake, her best friend's boyfriend. Flora can remember the kiss and will risk everything, including her relationship with her only friend, Paige, to stay connected to Drake. She spends every second under the watchful eyes of her parents, but when her brother Jacob is dying, her parents travel to Paris. Flora decides to go to the Arctic, where Drake is studying. When Flora is faced with the truth of her life, she will need to be brave and confront her past in order to have a future. Nicola Barber captures Flora's emotional turmoil and manages to sound like a 17-year-old girl who thinks she is 10. Barber conveys the confusion and pain of Flora's life. The beginning is a bit slow, but the suspense of Flora trying to locate Drake and the need to know what is going on will keep listeners interested. VERDICT The doping by Flora's parents to keep her docile is not really addressed, and at times Flora lacks agency, but the bittersweet ending will leave readers feeling hopeful.-Sarah Flood, Breckinridge County Public Library, Hardinsburg, KY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Flora Banks, 17, has anterograde amnesia, which has left her unable to make new memories. Flora remembers her life around and before age 10, but she must use messages written on her skin, her phone, and in a diarylike notebook to remind her of who she is and to fill in the details of recent history. Everything changes when Flora retains her memory of a kiss on the beach with Drake, her best friend Paige's boyfriend who is leaving to study in the Arctic. In her first book for teens, British author Barr creates a realistic portrayal of Flora's condition through her repetitive and confused first-person narration ("There was a party. Drake is leaving. Paige is sad. I am seventeen. I need to be brave"). Flora fears she will never be "normal," but Barr carefully seeds her story with hope while challenging perceptions of normalcy. Flora's situation may be singular, but her desire for autonomy should speak loudly to teens in the midst of their own journeys into adulthood. Ages 12-up. Agent: Kate Cooper, Curtis Brown. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Flora, be brave is written on British teen Flora Bankss hand; under that is I am 17. When Flora, who has anterograde amnesia, shares a kiss (her first) with Drake, she becomes obsessed with the fact that she can remember it: Drakes kiss will be the thing that heals me. Flora sets out for Svalbard--alone--in search of Drake and a potential cure. Her journey is by turns heartbreaking, funny, hair-raising, and empowering, and narrator Barber accomplishes the daunting task of embodying all of these extremes convincingly. Her pacing of the immediate, present-tense prose heightens Floras (and listeners) disorientation and, while highlighting her disturbingly repetitive thoughts and behaviors, nevertheless builds tension as repeated ideas coalesce into new insights. Barbers portrayal of the moments when Floras memories and sense of self revert to those of a sweet, confused, and vulnerable ten-year-old is particularly poignant. Over the course of her travels, Flora realizes that she is brave--and ready to grow up. katie bircher (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.