Emily Barr

Interesting( if a little bit confusing novel to begin with )surrounding a mysterious mansion in Cornwall called Cliff House. The novel opens with three local friends ( Ari, Josie and Clem) filming a Year 12 project at the house claiming its owned by horrible rich people, haunted and a zombie lady lives in the caretaker's cottage at the end of the driveway. They fly their drone over the house and lose it in the garden and then need to climb over the wall to retrieve it because they have said a whole lot of bad stuff about the owners of the house. While they are doing this, Ari decides to make peace with the lady who lives in the cottage and apologize for trespassing, but not before they find something weird in the garden beds.
Rewind back to WW2 and Martha is an evacuee coming to stay in Cornwall. We see her chosen by Violet to live in Cliff House. Fast forward to 2008 and we are suddenly looking at two mothers of new babies - one being rude to the other when her baby starts digging in the flower bed!
As you can see, the book jumps all over the place, and you the reader need to keep your wits about you as you tie each character together. The evacuee is the old lady in the cottage. The baby is Josie the best friend of Ari. It is all a bit complicated but eventually you start to see what is happening..

There are two deaths...one is a suicide and one a murder. There is a complicated friendship between Ari and Clem, the very rich, snobby great granddaughter of Martha who owns Cliff House. There is a beautiful friendship between Ari and Martha as they share a love of Cliff House itself and the ancient dresses she has kept. There is also romance between Ari and Rik despite a rocky start and LGBT romance between Ari's friend Josie and Rik's sister Meg. And finally, there is the reading of a will where Cliff House is left to who? (After the mystery of the flower beds has been sorted).… (lisätietoja)

When I started reading this book, I wasn't sure if it was something I was going to like or not. You see Flora, our narrator, had a brain tumor removed and it also removed her short term memory. Basically she forgets everything that has happened since she was 9 years old every time she turns around. She resorts to writing notes to herself on her hands and arms to fill herself in on things. So, the reason that this was hard for me to get into at first was because of the repetitiveness. Every time Flora forgets, she has to go back through EVERYTHING to understand why she's not a little girl anymore.

Then I got to this magical place where I got used to the recapping, and I started LOVING this book. Flora just grew on me and I was rooting for her while equally worrying to death what was going to happen to her. She basically kisses a boy on the beach and REMEMBERS IT-- and only it. She decides to follow that memory to the arctic where the boy currently is-- on her own. I was blown away by her bravery and ability to always land on her feet. I also wanted to fly to Svalbard and bring her home safely. I am a mother after all.

I thought the best part of this book (besides Flora in general) was that there was this whole other "family secrets" storyline, which made the book so much more interesting. I didn't really want to read about a GUY that "fixes" her-- and you guys, this book is not that!! It's about Flora finding her independence and being insanely brave and LIVING.

By the end of the book, I went from nervous and tense to emotional in a hurry. It surprised me how hard the ending hit me. I cried-- which I haven't been doing as much while reading. I felt the hurt and hope, and THAT was when I realized how good this book really was.

OVERALL: I loved the rollercoaster this book took me on. Flora isn't a character I'll be forgetting anytime soon. I completely recommend trying this-- it's like a YA Momento with major feels.

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