KINDLE BUY LINK: Muscle Memory
Muscle Memory by Stylo FantomeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Reviewed by: Michelle
ARC provided by author in exchange for an honest review
This author. This book. These character. This title. This story is a testament of what it truly means to feel. To get completely lost and swept away in an utterly raw and visceral story of life, emptiness, and love. A literary masterpiece where you as a reader are asked to go along a journey of a man’s quest in filling the blank spaces as he discovers or tries to remember who he was.
If she couldn't be the love of his life anymore, she would help him love life. She would make him smile and laugh, she would encourage him and share with him.”A thousand thoughts. A vast oceans of feelings. A million memories. And in an instant, what if it is gone? Everything that you have known wiped away. A clean slate. Is starting anew, a second chance at life? Or is just forgetting and not knowing, an easy way out of erasing your past mistakes? In Stylo Fantome’s newest standalone, Muscle Memory, she has readers asking the same thing. Is knowing better than not knowing? And what if, you are stuck in the middle? At a crossroad where your new relationship collides with your old love? Are those memories worth remembering if someone gets hurt along the way? Or is it better this way not knowing?
Alone in a hospital. No recollection of who you are. Just another John Doe as the nurses and doctors refers to you. This is how “John Doe” wakes up after several weeks in the hospital. No memory of who he is and how he ended up injured. The only thing he knows is how they found him fallen in the subway tracks severely hurt and high as a kite. And so this “John Doe” who rather be called“Jon Doherty” now finds himself helpless and alone.
I don't know her, but she's in my blood and in my bones and in my body. I wake up reaching for her, but can't remember her ever being there. I turn around to look for her, then realize she was never with me. She's my ghost, she haunts me. I don't remember her, but I know her.”Luckily for Jon, a social worker was able to help him out and get him on his feet. Since he has no proper ID or recollection of his Social Security Number, Jon can’t get a job and so he ends up in a halfway house where he is forced to do volunteer work in order to earn his food and housing. It is there at his volunteer job that he meets Katherine, who likes to be called Kitty. Kitty comes from an affluent family. She is rich, beautiful, kind, and very much attracted to Jon. Soon they begin to form a friendship that turns into a relationship.
While Kitty makes Jon happy, something else is missing. His memories. Vague pieces of his past would sporadically come up but the important parts are still blank that is until he runs into a stranger but she doesn’t feel like a stranger.
Delany is shocked when she discover Jayson is not dead but alive. The love of her life is there standing in front of her but doesn’t know who she is. She searched all over Brooklyn for Jayson but no one with that name came forward. The only thing she regrets was that she never thought to search for John Doe.
Because that's what real love did – in all things, it strove for the complete and utter happiness of its counterpart. It wasn't jealousy or anger or malice. It was happiness. So she would work on helping Jon find true happiness. And then, maybe, she could think what it at all meant for her.”Delany and Jayson were young, stupid, and reckless. They partied too much. Got addicted to drugs and alcohol. That was all in the past and now Delany is clean and sober. And Jayson is now Jon Doherty. A new man with a new girlfriend.
Muscle Memory is a deep exploration of what it means to love, find happiness, to sacrifice, to forgive, and to move on. It is a daily reminder of what it means to be human. To be bare. To be naked. To be vulnerable. To have your feelings exposed. To be raw. The story of Jon/Jay, Delany, and Kitty is a heartbreaking, poignant, and consuming story of love and memories. Jon’s life is intertwined with Kitty and Delany. Two women who have helped and shaped him. Two women who cares for him. Two woman but only one man. One man whose memories are just pieces of fragments of his past but can feel in the depth of his soul, he is connected to one woman. “Because when true love finds its counterpart, it always recognizes it. It's all in the muscle memory.”
Stylo Fantome did an amazing job with this book. She practically took her readers down the proverbial rabbit hole where we were bombarded with an array symphony of raw emotions. Your heart just stopped because you can feel the anguish, torment, confusion, and pain not just for Jon but as well as for Delany and Kitty. I absolutely love this book for it’s powerful message of friendship, new beginning, and love. The writing packed a punched and these characters were the beating heart of this book as it gave this story life and meaning. So if you are looking for a book that reminds us the testament of love and sacrifices then I highly recommend you to read this book. And just remember some memories don’t fade but are forever etched in your heart and mind. And those memories can lead you back. Home. Just like how Jon/Jay found his way back with the help of muscle memory.
This is what it feels like to be whole again. ”
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