Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick

Pages: 320 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK 

Released: 4th of April 2023 

What would you do if you forgot the love of your life existed?

Stevie and Nora had a love. A secret, epic, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. They also had a plan: to leave their small, ultra-conservative town and families behind after graduation and move to California, where they could finally stop hiding that love.

But then Stevie has a terrible fall and the last two years of her life are erased overnight. Suddenly Stevie finds herself in a life she doesn’t quite understand – she’s estranged from her parents, drifting away from her friends and dating a boy she can’t remember crushing on. She’s headed towards a future that isn’t at all what her fifteen-year-old self would have envisioned.

And Nora finds herself … forgotten.

Can the two find their way back together through a lost memory?

A romantic ode to the strength of love and the power of choosing each other, against odds and obstacles, again and again.

TW: homophobia, racism, memory loss 

What I Have to Say 

This book was beautiful. The ending was perfect and made me cry so hard. I loved it so much. It was a wonderful story of sapphic love against all odds. Against a backdrop of racism and homophobia, it's about two girls tragically separated by memory loss and having to find each other again. 

I wouldn't like to speak about the medical stuff in the book. I don't know how accurate it is for memory loss and recovery, but it was a really interesting plot device and made for a really good story. It was in a way a coming of age story because it was her finding out that she was gay all over again. 

The only thing that made me pause was the fact that she was Asian. I loved the representation as it's always important to see in all sorts of books, but there was no explanation of her background. I was confused as to whether her parents or her mother were Asian or if she was adopted, because it felt like they fit into the town and there was no talk of them facing racial abuse or anything. It just left me confused about how it all fitted together. 

I really enjoyed it though and would definitely read it again! 

4 stars 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for providing me with this copy for review. 

The Upside of Falling Down by Rebekah Crane

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 247

Publisher: Skyscape 

Released: 30th of January 2018 

For Clementine Haas, finding herself is more than a nice idea. Ever since she woke up in an Irish hospital with complete amnesia, self-discovery has become her mission.

They tell her she’s the lone survivor of a plane crash. They tell her she’s lucky to be alive. But she doesn’t feel lucky. She feels…lost.

With the relentless Irish press bearing down on her, and a father she may not even recognize on his way from America to take her home, Clementine assumes a new identity and enlists a blue-eyed Irish stranger, Kieran O’Connell, to help her escape her forgotten life…and start a new one.

Hiding out in the sleepy town of Waterville, Ireland, Clementine discovers there’s an upside to a life that’s fallen apart. But as her lies grow, so does her affection for Kieran, and the truth about her identity becomes harder and harder to reveal, forcing Clementine to decide: Can she leave her past behind for a new love she’ll never forget? 

What I Have to Say 

This was a great book about picking yourself up and finding a new identity after a tragedy. Clementine has no memory of who she was before the crash and she's scared of hurting the people from her old life by pretending to be someone she's not. So she runs away from her life and chooses to find a new identity rather than chasing after an old one. 

Obviously it is not a good idea to run away from hospital and go off with a complete stranger in a foreign country, but I really understood Clementine and wanted her to succeed. I wanted her to go back to her dad, but I also wanted her to find her new life and run away with Kieran. It's a book that really makes you think hard about the choices that Clementine is making and whether what she's doing is for the best. 

I love books that make you think about things differently. The right and wrong of it all is obvious, but even then, it still makes you think about it all. 

A love letter to Ireland, with strong themes of identity and truth, this was a fantastic book all around. 

My thanks go to Skyscape and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review.