A Book Review - Amnesia by Sinclair Smith (Point Horror)

I should mention before I start that, six years ago, I did in fact suffer from what the doctors called "absolute personal retrograde amnesia" which is what Alicia in this book suffers from. Personal as opposed to global, meaning that personal memories are gone but not things like eating or speaking or the knowledge of who the presidents were or the equation for photosynthesis. Absolute meaning that ALL the personal stuff was gone, not just bits and pieces. Retrograde meaning it was everything before the accident, rather than anterograde, which would be short-term stuff since the accident.

(There, you learned something today.)

If I'd remembered this book, I'd have been freaked out. Luckily, my memory wasn't working.

Heh, some brain-damage-humor for you there.

Anyway, onward.

Sinclair Smith is probably the only Point Horror writer who could have pulled this off. Christopher Pike (who doesn't have any books in the British PH series) could have made a good book out of it, but he'd have ended it up with Alicia being a cyborg or something. The other authors would have flopped it. But Smith is inventive enough with her / his (still haven't managed to find an author bio online) plots that s/he made it work beautifully.

Spoilers don't really matter, as the suspense doesn't concern the who but the what, when and how.

Alicia wakes up in hospital, not knowing anything about herself and unable to recognise her face. She only knows her name because of the bracelet she's wearing. After a few days, the doctor tells her that her sister has come to take her home. When she sees her sister Marta for the first time, Alicia is terrified, but she manages to shrug off this visceral reaction and embrace Marta as her kin and kith.

When Marta gets Alicia home, she seems a bit bossy and controlling, but nothing too awful. But as time goes on, she becomes angrier and more controlling of Alicia, forcing her to dress, eat and act in ways that Alicia supposedly always did, but that feel totally unnatural to the new her. Marta manages to convince Alicia that Alicia was unbalanced before her head injury; that she destroyed all the family photos and stole things and generally acted like a psycho - even though it's Marta who now goes around smashing plates and killing canaries. But Alicia doesn't have the memories or the friends to say otherwise. Until one day she realises that Marta isn't her sister at all...

Hoo boy. I'm glad I didn't have to go through anything as bad as poor Alicia, because that was some creepy stuff right there.

Alicia's a fun character, and easy to empathise with, not just because of her predicament but also because you get a nice feel for her while she's learning about herself. And Marta is quite terrifying. If you've ever lived with a mentally unbalanced person of this type, you'll know that Smith got it spot on.

Amnesia was a delightfully chilling read. Straightforward enough for younger readers (a nice change after reading Richie Tankersley Cusick's The Mall!) but suspenseful enough to entertain older teens (or adults). Very well played, Sinclair Smith.

Verdict: Frighteningly realistic.