Title: Forget You
Author: Jennifer Echols
Publisher: MTV Books
Release Date: July 20, 2010
Summary: WHY CAN’T YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU FORGET . . . AND WHAT YOU REMEMBER? There’s a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four- year old girlfriend. Like Zoey’s fear that the whole town will find out about her mom’s nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. Feeling like her life is about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she’s the perfect daughter, the perfect student, and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon. But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there’s one thing she can’t remember at all—the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug—of all people— suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life—a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug.
Review: Jennifer Echols once again captures the angst of youth. As if life isn’t complicated enough with parents divorces, high school gossip, and the general perils of growing up, Echols examines all aspects of Zoey’s life.
Zoey is a typical teenager, except her father is rich and embarrassed by his ex-wife’s suicide attempt. He orders Zoey not to say anything, and the road that follows leads Zoey on a tail spin in her own life. Echols even examines losing your virginity and the feelings that follow for a young girl. Echols writing allows the reader to understand their own emotions and she gives credit that teenagers can talk freely.
There is some serious chemistry between Zoey and Doug, though Zoey struggles to make the relationship with Brandon work. Zoey is like most of us, wanting the relationship with her first to work out. It is only over time and fighting within her self that Zoey can see that Brandon wasn’t the relationship that she built up in her own mind, because she couldn’t remember what happened.
Echols writing is moving. It seems to be simple, yet every word is a complex journey. Zoey’s road to the acceptance of her imperfect life… Doug and Zoey getting together… Echols writing is amazing. I sat down and devoured this book in one sitting. I can pretty much guarantee you will too.
