Amnesia & Why I Hate It In Books
Hate is a strong word. My hate of this specific topic has been building up over the last decade having read 500+ books. I'm simply fed up with it. Of course, there are exceptions if the story sounds good enough or if it's written by an author that I've read in the past and liked.
My main issue with amnesia as a big plot twist is that in my experience it's come up in the middle of the story in the form of an "accident". That means the heroine/hero needs to relearn what's happening in the story. The consequence of that is having the whole series retold in the second half of the book in the middle of the series. So why did I have to read the other books again? Why couldn't things have just started off from that point in the story?
The other issue I have is that sometimes the amnesia goes away just as fast and miraculously as it happened. All of a sudden, the main character remembers everything and the book ends. I was obligated to read an entire recap of the whole series in the middle of the book and I don't even get a real ending, just a cliffhanger?!
Amnesia has made me not finish and end up despising so many books throughout the years. Maybe it's because of my impatience and getting to relearn everything from a character's point of view of events I've already read about just rubs me the wrong way. I've come to the conclusion that, for me, amnesia in the middle of a book in a series is a cop out.
Do you share my dislike of this topic?
Let's discuss in the comments below!
Hmmm I've never read a book/series with amnesia in which they retold everything that happened like you're describing (though I can see why you dislike that). My issue with amnesia is that characters with it never seem to have any personality, and so they just feel flat :-/
ReplyDeleteI don't know what kind of books I was picking up 8+ years ago but I came across quite of few of those. I haven't seen it in the longest time (thankfully!), but it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I've sworn off every amnesia book ever. That's also very true! The character with amnesia usually turns into a bland version of themselves which I usually can't stand for very long :/
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