Oh, who am I kidding? I have always gravitated towards the paranormal and downright weird.

Lately, I’ve noticed a stream of novels based on reincarnation, two of which I’ve already reviewed (The Reincarnationist & My Name is Memory). Just like vampires dominated the fiction landscape a few years ago (thanks, Twilight), I think bookstores are soon to be chock-full of reincarnation. “The Eternal Ones” by Kirsten Miller is the latest in this flood and I was eager to get my hands on it.

The protagonist of the novel is Haven Moore, a teenage girl who longs for New York City. Growing up in Snope City, Tennessee, she’s always been an outcast, especially after the other children found out about her visions. Haven’s been having visions of New York and a boy named Ethan since she was young. These visions aren’t received well by the local, Christian folk, including Haven’s strict grandmother, and she is sent to see the local preacher, Dr. Tidmore, to get them under control. After years of peace, when she is just about to graduate from high school and finally escape Tennessee, she begins having visions again. However, this time Haven’s mother decides to help her daughter and tells her that her father believed that she was reincarnated. Haven also learns of something called the Ouroboros Society, which is also in New York, and aims to bring together those who remember their past lives. Once Haven learns this, there is no stopping her and the adventure begins as she sets out to find Ethan.

Firstly, let me say that “The Eternal Ones” is very much a young adult fiction book and if you can’t handle the immature conversations of teenagers, then don’t even bother. Luckily, I’m still in touch with my inner fourteen-year-old and had no trouble recalling her when I picked this one up. Just a disclaimer for those of you who consider yourselves very mature.

“The Eternal Ones” was a surprisingly super entertaining book that I had trouble putting down. I say surprisingly because I’ve read loads of reincarnation novels and didn’t expect anything new from this. However, I’ll wholeheartedly admit that I was wrong! This one literally kept me up until the wee hours of the morning, because I just HAD to find out the next chapter in Haven’s adventure. I plowed through it in only 3 days and with the onslaught of psychology papers I’m also working on, that’s impressive.

This novel is totally enthralling and captivating. It has a little bit of romance mixed in with a whole lot of adventure and mystery and really grabs you. I really, really enjoyed “The Eternal Ones” by Kirsten Miller and hope you do too!

Got some free time? Need a good book to take your mind off of class? Check out Alex’s other book reviews!

LOVE HER.

I’ve been a fan of Ann Brashares for a decade. “The Sisterhood” series is one of my favorites and practically defines my young adolescence. So, when the opportunity to interview Ann Brashares and review her new book “My Name is Memory” came up, I jumped at the chance! I’m still in shock that I had an actual conversation with one of my favorite authors.

Below, find the interview with one of the neatest women I have ever met and then the review of My Name is Memory.

When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve always been a big reader. I’ve always loved books, I’ve always loved stories. And I’ve always told myself stories. I used to write some of them down, but I didn’t really have the idea of being a writer. Somehow, I didn’t imagine that it was something I could actually do as a job so I got a job after college as a receptionist at a small company that produced books mostly for children and young adults. And I was madly attracted to that, to the idea of being in that atmosphere where people were working on books. And little by little I was able to take on some editorial responsibilities and got promoted eventually to being an assistant editor and senior editor and finally I think I was editor-in-chief and then I ended up buying the company with a partner.

So I was a small-business owner for a brief time. Basically I was working on a lot of manuscripts, as an editor. I was revising them, working with writers, writing revision letters, writing cover copies, and doing line editing, which is a real art and I just loved it and worked on it for years and years. So I did that for about ten or eleven years and as I did I realized that my strengths were definitely not administrative and not managerial. They were not organizational in any way. The thing that I was good at and the thing that I loved was just being close to the manuscript and I became known as the kind-off expert re-writer. So if a book was in trouble I would be brought in to do major re-writes, like write 200 pages of a book. And that was so much fun because there’s no ego in that – I just wanted to try to get into a voice and do the best job I could. And the closer I was to the most creative part of it, the happier I was. And finally I did this gigantic re-write and I gave it to an editor at Random House, who was publishing the book. She read over my work and said, “If you ever decide to be a writer, please show me your work. I strongly encourage you to be a writer.” I was very fearful about it and was afraid that I couldn’t do it, but finally with her encouragement and encouragement from other places, I decided to kind of take a risk and I wrote my first book.

So what was that first book?

It was the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

That’s an amazing book to have as your first!

Yes, it was a good start. It was a really lucky start, too.

How did you come up with “My name is memory”?

We were on vacation at the beach and I had just gone running, which always makes my mind work better and more creatively and I was thinking about this cinematic picture in my head of this couple, this young man and woman and they’re in this uncertain, but very, very dire situation, like they’re facing death. And somehow, the young man comforts the woman, saying that somehow he is going to find her again, like this isn’t the end. He’s never actually tried to convince anyone of this and she believes him. And I was thinking, “Well, why is he so sure of this?” Why does he think that he’s going to be able to find her again? And why does he think that he can navigate and see from the other side of death? And I thought, because he’s died and lived again. Then I had this whole idea that he has this memory and I started to build a bit of the mythology underlying this book. And primarily the idea that there is this character, Daniel, who has this very long, intense history and the memory of all of it.

Do you believe in reincarnation as it is a major theme in this new book?

No, I don’t know if I do. I’m fascinated by it and I feel like as a lens to view the world it’s interesting. I don’t have any religious conviction about it, but I’m interested in it and I find it from a storytelling point of view, very fascinating.

What do you think you would have done in a past life?

That’s an interesting question. I feel like I’m very drawn to certain periods of history, so I feel like maybe I’ve lived then, like I have some connection to it. I’m interested in the period of World War 1 in Europe, which is probably why I set parts of the book there. I imagine that wherever I’ve been, I would have been attracted to books and stories. Part of my idea in this book is that people think that if they have been reincarnated then they must have been like Marie Antoinette or all these sort of fabulous historical people and chances are probably most of us were pretty normal people. I don’t imagine for myself anything very exotic or [an] elevated life.

What is your favorite book?

Gosh, I should have a quick and good answer to that question. It always stops me in my tracks because it’s so hard to pick one. I feel like I could pick my twenty favorite books. It’s almost prismatic, all your favorite books. As they come together, they explain you a little bit. There have been so many books that I’ve loved totally. As a child, I loved those Frances Hodgson Burnett books: Little Princess and The Secret Garden. Those are probably the books that I have read the greatest number of times.

What is your favorite book of yours?

That’s such a tough question. I feel like I have such a maternal relationship to the books. I don’t want to single one out. The one that I’m closest to now is My Name is Memory because it’s the one I’ve been thinking about. As it recedes deeper into my past, I’ll think more about the new one I’m working on and immersing myself in my new book. My first book will always have a special place because it was how I became a writer. The Second Summer of the Sisterhood is one of my favorites. I worked on it for a very long time and I really struggled with it. Each book I feel so connected to, it’s hard to reject any in favor of any other.

The Second Sisterhood is my favorite as well!

I don’t know what it is about that book. It was one of the hardest ones to write, but I look at it and I feel really proud of it.

Because this website is called CollegeCandy, think back to your college experience. What advice would you give to college-age people?

I would say study what you love. You think that you need to be practical and in some ways, maybe it’s a good idea. But no matter what you’re going to do, college should be a time to learn and to explore your own mind and learn how to learn. Develop your intellect and do whatever it takes to do that. Because studying what you want is really going to develop your mind and your heart as well. I feel like I was a little bit too serious in college and I was in a big hurry to grow up and as I look back, I wish I hadn’t been. You have the entire rest of your life for that.

Are you working on any other novels right now? Can you give us a hint?

When I finished writing the four books about the Sisterhood, I wanted it to have an end, but at the same time I didn’t want to have these characters go on forever, so I decided to challenge myself to write new and other things, with the idea that I could come back to them. So that’s what I’m doing. It’s now ten years later and I’m coming back to them as women.

And the “Memory” series continues too?

Yes, I have a lot of plans for it, but I haven’t started it yet. It came to me as a three-act drama. I’m very eager to get to finish it.

Review of “My Name is Memory”

“My Name is Memory” is quite different from Ann Brashares’ other books. With a touch of science fiction and written like a thriller, it’s an exciting ride that I couldn’t put down. Seriously, I totaled this one in a mere three days, just reading before bed and well into the wee hours of the morning.

“Memory” tells the story of Daniel, a young man who has what he refers to as the Memory. He has lived and died many times and remembers each of his past lives vividly. He says the this condition is rare, but he has met a few others with it along the way. Daniel has been on a quest for thousands of years to find his love, Sophia, and finally live their current life together. They have been ripped apart every time they find each other, so when Daniel and Sophia end up living nearby, and are the same age, he is thrilled but terrified. Sophia doesn’t have the Memory, so in this life she is just Lucy, a normal American girl and even though she is drawn to the mysterious Daniel, she has no idea of their past. Eventually, Daniel tells Lucy of their history, but she is scared and overwhelmed and doesn’t believe him. After several years, Lucy visits a psychic who talks about Daniel and she decides to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding them.

I won’t give any more plot away, but I will say this one was FABULOUS! I can’t believe that the woman who wrote “The Sisterhood” series, books about teen girls, can write a slightly science-fiction, adult book just as well. Brashares is truly a talented writer and such a imaginative person. The characters she has created for “Memory” are wonderful. They are so complex, yet believable and real and I understood the story from both Daniel and Lucy’s side. Like I said before, I got so wrapped up in this one, I wasn’t able to even put it down.

The love story was what really got me though; I love my boyfriend and kept putting us in this scenario. I can’t imagine how heart-breaking it must be for Daniel to live for thousands of years, only hoping to be loved back by this one woman and that never happening. His one friend with the Memory, Ben, tells him to move on and practice loving other people, but Daniel’s heart truly belongs to Sophia, so he will spend eternity trying to find her and convince her of their past.

I also really liked how Ann utilized the reincarnation theme to its fullest extent. I’m sure everyone has had a moment of deja vu or has some irrational fears and she explains those. Everything in this life that seems silly or strange, isn’t random at all; you’ve experienced something in a past life that made you that way. She also says that people tend to come back together, so you’re best friend now may have been your mother in a past life, etc. It’s comforting to think that the people you’re close to now are the people who you have always been close to, since the beginning of time.

“My Name is Memory” is the perfect summer read. Whether inside on a rainy afternoon, or enjoying a sunny day at the beach, it’s simply a great book. Just make sure that you give yourself ample time to dig into this one because you’re going to be busy for a while!

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