South Lake Library Media Center

Imagine taking a pill to forget an ugly incident – forever, so you can go about your life as if nothing ever happened…  Nora can do just that.  But she doesn’t.  She secretly spits out the pill prescribed at the TFC (Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic) where her mother takes her to forget a deathly car bomb explosion.   Even Nora’s mom routinely visits the clinic for pills between shopping mall sprees.  When Nora discovers her mother’s memories that she is selectively erasing, Nora cannot let this happen.

Memento Nora takes place in the distant future in a world where terrorists constantly detonate bombs.  The government tries to keep things at bay
with high-tech security, surveillance, curfews, blast-proof car services, safety residential compounds, and the like.  It’s an interesting high-tech world, but with something amiss.

This book follows the suspenseful events that unravel when the popular school girl rebels.  She pursues an unlikely friendship with an artsy, skateboarding boy, Micah, who isn’t part of her “in” crowd.  With two new friends, Micah and Winter (creator of a huge backyard full of imaginative kinetic sculptures), Nora anonymously publishes an underground comic book which reveals supposedly erased terrorist memories.  Of course, this sets off a chain of events because somebody does not want these memories publicized.

Author Angie Smibert’s writing blends technology with art and creativity.  I don’t typically read many science fiction novels, but this quick read was satisfying.  For me, at the core of good science fiction lies the idea that main characters use their intelligence to understand their world and solve a conflict to survive.  This is true of the brave yet vulnerable Nora and her two friends as they are put to the test.  Smibert is currently writing a sequel to Memento Nora.