Yesterday by C. K. Kelly Martin was a slightly disappointing read for me. I have heard really good things about this author but I was not overly wowed by this book, though the writing was good and I would still consider checking out her other works. I really liked the idea behind this story but the execution of it fell little flat for me and I found the story to be confusing, at least initially.
Yesterday is told from the perspective of Freya Kallas, a sixteen year old girl who is thrown into a new life and finds herself starting over at a new school in Canada. The year is 1985 and Freya has moved with her mother and sister from Auckland, New Zealand, after her father is killed in a freak gas explosion. Freya feels oddly disconnected to her life and it is not just her grief that is making her feel that way. She has blanks in her memories and some of the things that have happened to her feel as though they had happened to someone else.
Freya has difficulty connecting with people at her new school but one day, on a class trip to the museum, she sees a boy and feels somehow like she knows him, even though her memories are telling her otherwise. Freya follows the boy (who we later find out is called Garren Lowe) home and although she does not talk to him, she cannot shake off the feeling of deja-vu that she feels. Freya decides to confront Garren but he has no recollection of her. It is not until they realise that their backgrounds have a few too many similarities that Garren comes round to the idea that Freya may be right about them having a history. They decide to uncover the truth but their investigation has unforeseen consequences and the two teens find themselves on the run, fighting for their lives.
I feel that there was a very good idea within this story, and it definitely kept me reading as I wanted to find out what was going on, but i never felt really connected to the characters and I didn't feel invested in their struggles or the overall story. The writing itself was really good though (despite one chapter where Freya gets her memories back and proceeds to give a detailed but clinical version of their history ****spoiler begins****well the history leading up to her time - you see there is time travel involved and the main characters are from 70+ years in the future (well from 1985 anyway)****spoiler ends****.
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