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[/amazon_link]Title : Archetype
Author : M. D. Waters
Genre : Sci-fi, Dystopian
Publisher : Dutton
Pages: 384
Publish Date : February 4th, 2014
Source : Netgalley / Publisher ARC
Rating : 3.5/5
Emma Wade wakes up after an almost fatal accident in a top-notch medical facility, to the relief of her devoted husband Declan. Try as she might, she can’t remember much of her past, and more importantly how she got into the mess which landed her in intensive care. As she recovers, under the close, almost suffocating supervision of Dr. Travista, snatches of her past life come back to her. Only, in those faint memories she seems to be a very different person, with a very different life – and loving, handsome, powerful Declan doesn’t seem to be a part of it at all. There is only man who seems to matter in those dreams – Noah, who’s probably a figment of her very fragile and twisted imagination. When Emma meets Noah in real life, her life comes crashing down. What is real and what is imagination?
The premise of this book is very interesting: a full-fledged functioning adult wakes from a deep slumber, with zero memories of her past. She is told who she is by a group of concerned and attentive people. Her mind wants to believe in the current reality, but her heart demurs. The book is creatively plotted around the issues of identity, and knowledge of oneself – after all, we always know who we really are, right?
Emma’s handy spell of amnesia lets the author introduce intrigue beautifully; we know there’s something wrong with the picture, but we don’t know what it is. Waters rachets up the tension gradually with the oddities about Emma’s surrounding and the medical personnel who keep her so closely under guard, like she’s a precious commodity. Which brings me to the other focus of this story – the use of women as commodities (a la Margaret Atwood). This story is set sometime in the future, where fertile women are few and greatly prized for their child-bearing capacities. Emma is one of the few fertile women, and Declan makes no secret of the fact that he wants a child, and soon.
My high expectations for this book were brought to heel by the fact that this book read like a Young Adult novel, language-wise – not quite what I was expecting from a Dutton publication (note that this was a galley so final print versions might have gone through further editing). This dystopian novel also has an element of romance, but the romance feels like the giddy-headed throes of passion a youngster might suffer from, rather than the more refined emotion of an able and confident adult. Noah and Emma’s characters also felt a little juvenile. The book started well, but the plot frayed a little at the edges as it became clearer what was going on.
Despite the problems, this was an interesting, fast-paced thriller of a book, and I read it in one quick sitting.
