Customer Reviews

The Reminder

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I'm not sure I normally would've picked this book up from a bookstore, but I'm glad it found its way into my hands. The stage is not large, the characters aren't many but the emotions are true and the story carries an urgency that stays with you for days after reading it.

The close narrative makes the reader feel as if they've known Daze for years after only a few pages. Her matter-of-fact voice rings out clearly from every page, and in spite of the somewhat sombre subject matter, the book does not have a dreary feel to it at all. It sounds almost absurd to describe a book about grief processing as a page-turner, but this nevertheless is the case with The Reminder.

Both in The Reminder and in her earlier novel, Genesis Alpha, Michaels has shown an ability to write in such a novel and exciting way that stories that are at their core realistic read like wildest speculative fiction. She never takes the easy way out and every aspect of the story feels thoroughly thought through. Very enjoyable read about a girl tackling the most difficult of problems in an overwhelmingly modern world.

Rune Michaels' THE REMINDER tells of Daisy, who keeps hearing her dead mother's voice. While she's familiar with the possibilities and reasons, this time it's something different - and holds an opportunity to save her mother's life. A fine tale of loss and survival emerges.

Daisy has never quite come to terms with her mother's death. Though she's told the kids at school tons of stories about hospitals and chemotherapy, she refuses to discuss it with the therapist she's been seeing. And when she starts hearing her mother's voice, she can't help but hope there's some way her mother's still alive.

What Daisy stumbles on in her search is both stranger and more complicated that she could possibly have imagined. Now she has to figure out how to deal with the secret her father's been hiding, and the secrets she's been holding deep inside herself.

How far will she go to hold on to what seems to be her last real tie to the mother she never wanted to lose?

THE REMINDER captures the feelings of loss and mourning perfectly, the gloom that hangs over Daisy's life running through every page. Yet it's far from depressing -- it's a story of survival and hope, about living on and letting go. Readers will sympathize with Daisy's struggle, and follow the mystery eagerly to the final page. The revelation at the end is somewhat abrupt, but looking back, Michaels has done an excellent job of setting it up.

This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking look at how a modern family deals with the death of one of its members.

Reviewed by: Lynn Crow