October 14, 2017
Title: Girl Without a Face
Author: Medeia Sharif
Publication Date: March 3, 2017
Publisher: Evernight Teen
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
My Rating: 
Synopsis
Destiny awakes with amnesia. She'd been driving on a wet road, about to leave flowers at a memorial marker of a deceased classmate, when she almost met that same fate.
Her mother, Mildred, is beyond restrictive, and she doesn’t want Destiny to have her cellphone back. A nurse sneaks it into her room, but it’s useless without the passcode. After her hospital stay, her mother becomes physically abusive.
Destiny and the boy she’s developing feelings for decide to drive around to spark her memory. She’s positive she crashed near a memorial marker. When they find the place in question, and when Destiny remembers her phone’s passcode, nothing is as it seems—and Mildred is crazier than she first thought.
Her mother, Mildred, is beyond restrictive, and she doesn’t want Destiny to have her cellphone back. A nurse sneaks it into her room, but it’s useless without the passcode. After her hospital stay, her mother becomes physically abusive.
Destiny and the boy she’s developing feelings for decide to drive around to spark her memory. She’s positive she crashed near a memorial marker. When they find the place in question, and when Destiny remembers her phone’s passcode, nothing is as it seems—and Mildred is crazier than she first thought.
I'm torn on this one because while Girl Without a Face's plot was so very good, the way it was delivered wasn't.
What killed the book for me was when much of the story was given away in the beginning, and at that point I was disappointed the suspense had disappeared. The story could have been very creepy and had me on the edge of my seat had this not happened.
The dialogue between characters and Destiny's thoughts were written woodenly without emotion. I get that she has amnesia, but her thoughts repeated themselves endlessly. She also trusted the neighbor boy, Gabriel, way too much too soon for someone who can't remember who she is or anything from her past, not to mention the complete lack of chemistry between them.
The ending was too over-the-top unbelievable with a cartoonish antagonist. Plus things just worked out a little too neatly at the end.
Overall, Girl Without a Face is a quick read that could have been spectacular had it been completely fleshed out. I look forward to Medeia Sharif growing as a writer and will try out more of her work in the future.
