Review: I Remember You by Theo Baxter

                                                              

Print Length: TBA

Publisher: Inkubator Books (March 30, 2025)

From Goodreads.com: The perfect life…Or the perfect lie?

Two years ago, Aria West woke up in hospital with a severe head injury and no recollection of her previous life.

Now, she’s a successful sculptor, living in a remote cabin in upstate New York with her husband, Austin. Despite everything that’s happened, she’s living a good life. A peaceful life.

Except for the recurring nightmares – terrifying fragments of the trauma that led to her memory loss. Fragments that do not match Austin’s account of that fateful day.

As his behavior grows increasingly erratic, Aria becomes convinced her husband is hiding something sinister. To feel safe in the future, she knows she has to uncover the truth about the past—

But getting her memory back won’t be easy. Especially when someone will do anything to stop that from happening…

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My Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5

I am BEGGING authors when they are writing thriller and/or suspense novels to stop giving everything away in the opening chapters. Seriously, NINE pages into this story and I already knew who the dead body was that was laying beside Aria and therefore, who the most likely culprit was going to turn out to be. Even when the author tried to throw in a few red herrings to make you re-think your initial assumptions, they were not done well enough to truly make you doubt what you already knew. 

Another problem that I am noticing with this particular sub-genre of suspense novels is that they always seem to make the main male characters the most unlikable, unsufferable jerks ever. In this book, it was Aria's husband Austin. We are told at first that he was the best husband ever when he first brought Aria home from the hospital after her accident. He carried her around, he taught her how to cook, he even built her a shed outside for her kiln and pottery wheel so that she could use her hands more as one of her doctors had recommended. 

However as the story goes on, we begin (or at least I began) to see his true colors. The author tells us that Austin has anxiety and agoraphobia, but his behavior goes far beyond either of those things. For starters, he belittles Aria and her mental health issues (mainly her amnesia causing nightmares). When she tries to get help to better herself he point blank asks her what HE is supposed to do if HE has a panic attack while she is at therapy. Even going so far as to claim she was deserting him when in reality she was just trying to move on with her life. Later, he gets on her about her sleeping on the couch (literally one room away). When she explains that it is due to her nightmares and not wanting to disturb him, he asks her what he is supposed to do if he wakes up and needs her. Telling her that he's not going to drag himself out of bed to come to her. 

There are also the many times that he goes into her workspace and destroys her unfinished art pieces, or goes inside and begins throwing things around their house during one of his temper tantrums forcing her to clean up after him (usually before either demanding she make dinner or demeaning her because dinner isn't made). These tantrums usually happen while she's at therapy because she's doing something that he doesn't want her to do, or after she has done something else that he perceives as a slight towards him. It became tiring quickly to the point that I was hoping what eventually did come to pass would happen sooner. And in a much more violent way. 

That being said, there are still people to whom I think this novel will appeal (ones who are new to this sub-genre and who aren't as jade by it as myself for example), or already established fans of this author who know what to expect. As for myself, I may give one of their other stories a shot to see if this was just a one off for them, or if I can expect all of their male characters to be raging misogynistic pigs. 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.