Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa by Kristen Lippert Martin - 4.5 STARS

Synopsis - The Bourne Identity meets Divergent in this heart-pounding debut.
Sixteen-year-old Sarah has a rare chance at a new life. Or so the doctors tell her. She’s been undergoing a cutting-edge procedure that will render her a tabula rasa—a blank slate. Memory by memory her troubled past is being taken away.
But when her final surgery is interrupted and a team of elite soldiers invades the isolated hospital under cover of a massive blizzard, her fresh start could be her end. 
Navigating familiar halls that have become a dangerous maze with the help of a teen computer hacker who's trying to bring the hospital down for his own reasons, Sarah starts to piece together who she is and why someone would want her erased. And she won’t be silenced again.
A high-stakes thriller featuring a non-stop race for survival and a smart heroine who will risk everything, Tabula Rasa is, in short, unforgettable.

*A Copy was provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Overall: Action and Sci-Fi 
Characters: Sarah and Pierce 
Page Turner: Yes
Series Cont.? No
Recommend if You Like…The Program. 
Book Boyfriend:
Genre: Young Adult/ Sci-Fi   
Sex Scenes: No 

Overall- 
HOLY FREAKING COW. This book took me by surprise. I mean I knew I would like it, but I absolutely loved this book! It was by far one of the best books I have read so far this year. 

Tabula Rasa is an action packed adventure lots of mystery and a little bit of love. 

TR follows Sarah as she tries to piece together why she is in a private hospital in the middle of nowhere with no memory of who she is or where she is from, all while being hunted by a team of assassins. If the summary isn't enough for you to pick this up, then just about every review out there should convince you. The first few pages of the book, I thought maybe this isn't really for me, I figured it might be a slow book with a lot of questions, while the character(s) try to figure things out on the sly (like the Program) but this book is like the Program on steroids. It is a non stop action intense book. While Sarah's abilities are quite ridiculous at times (like climbing a crane and then jumping into a window while being shot at) I found that I was able to ignore those moments because the overall book was just so interesting intense and good!

For once, I must say that the flashbacks worked here. A lot of books that use flashbacks as a way of showing a reader more about the character seem to miss the mark for me, (Insanity…) but I was more than impressed with the authors ability to have the reader and the main character relive moments that actually helped move the book along. 

The pacing here was also really good. I never felt a moment that was unnecessary, misplaced, or unwanted. Sarah was spunky and fierce. Her determination clearly remained instilled in her regardless of the procedures she had been through. 

I also liked Pierce, I found him to be really entertaining. He was more than a side character. He was sarcastic and funny, but also an amazing hacker. His character helped move the plot forward in more than one way but never felt awkward or forced. The relationship between Pierce and Sarah felt "normal" (if thats possible). By normal I really mean that considering the plot and story line that their relationship seemed to flow. They bantered, and they kissed, but they were also skeptical of one another, and initially relied upon each other out of necessity rather than due to an insta love connection. In fact, their relationship is hardly sexual throughout most of the book. Instead the bond as friends more than anything else, until it becomes something else.

I found the other side characters to be interesting, but my .5 point deduction really comes from these odd side characters.  

The constant questions in this book felt natural, rather than constantly wanting to know whats going on, the author feeds the answers to us over time, just the Sarah gets them. Piece by piece the puzzle begins to form. A natural progression seems to occur. Unlike shows such as Lost where you get one of 10 questions answered only to have 10 more come up, TR's author constantly provided answers to our burning questions, leaving me satisfied in the end with everything that had occurred. 

LOVED this book and will definitely keep reading Ms. Lippert-Martins works!