Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not follows 18 year old Stevie and her girlfriend Nora, during their final summer before college. After dating in secret for two years, they are now just weeks away from executing their plan to leave their small conservative town for California. However when Stevie gets in an accident, she loses all her memories from the past two years, including coming to terms with her sexuality, falling in love with Nora and their plan to leave. Nora is torn between letting Stevie reconnect with her family and friends she was distant from, and telling her the truth she may not be ready to face yet.

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Wow, I really loved this book. I knew pretty early on I was going to fall in love with it as the writing and storytelling was just beautiful. The image of Nora pulling Stevie out of the ravine and carrying her to safety was enough to grip me. You could feel the love between these two girls so clearly, and could equally feel the hurt they were both going through in the aftermath of the accident. While Stevie was struggling with the idea of her memories never returning and realising her closest friends and family were lying to her, Nora faced Stevie potentially never remembering her or the love they shared.

I loved the lightness and friendship Ryan brought to Stevie (when she wasn’t trying to force herself to like him). He was also just looking for someone who made him feel less alone and was the friend Stevie needed, giving her the encouragement to accept who she was and be with Nora.

It was a pretty heavy read, not only with the memory loss aspect but also with the realities of being Asian and queer in a small rural conservative town. Stevie and Ryan both faced overt racism and micro aggressions from their “friends”, classmates and wider community, who often brushed it off as joking around. Nora faced a horrific response to her sexuality, being physically assaulted by her mum then kicked out of her home. As for Stevie’s parents homophobia, I feel it was resolved a little too quickly at the end. While her memory loss made her unaware she was gay, her mum knew and still actively encouraged her to date Ryan and stick it out with him despite her reservations. This really stuck with me throughout for how horrible it was. I am glad she got to leave town knowing her parents still loved her, and that she would always be welcomed back, but their conflict was resolved very quickly.

Overall, I really loved this book and think it will stay with me. Their love for each other was portrayed so well, and I can’t stop thinking about how Nora managed to save Stevie. While not every book needs to be or should be adapted, I would love to see this as a movie. I feel like it would translate so well on the big screen. I’d definitely recommend this, and cannot wait to pick up a copy when it’s released.

With the lost memory of Stevie, Nora is on a mission to try and help Stevie to remember her, this book gives you strength and romance and true eye opener of what people go through in real life

Stevie and Nora are forever. Having been together for two years, they’ve grown used to hiding their relationship from their homophobic town. They even have a plan. A plan to get out of there permanently and start their lives in somewhere they don’t have to hide. But then Stevie has a fall. And the last two years are wiped from her mind. There is no Nora. There is no leaving their town, Wyatt. There is, however, the boy Stevie supposedly likes, even though every time they’re together she feels nothing. There’s the local university she’s due to start at in the fall. There are her friends, however estranged they’ve become. And the parents she no longer feels she knows. And… Nora. The girl who saved her. The girl Stevie can’t stay away from for reasons unknown. Through a summer fast drawing to a close, Stevie and Nora grow closer—again—and Stevie starts to fall in love—again. But there are still obstacles in their way and it’s unclear whether they’ll get their happily ever after.

FORGET ME NOT was so perfect. Five stars, no doubt about it. I don’t have any complaints, whatsoever. I didn’t quite enjoy SHE GETS THE GIRL because the writing felt stinted and the characters didn’t feel as close as they could’ve felt, but this was the total opposite. From the beginning, I was hooked on the idea of Stevie and Nora’s relationship. I flew through it, feeling all of the heartache and the confusion when Stevie forgot Nora, all of the tender love they showed to one another, and how, despite it all, they wouldn’t give up on one another. Even if Stevie didn’t entirely know why she didn’t want to give up on Nora.

The ending was my favourite. The scene when they’re about to board the plane simultaneously broke my heart and then mended it back together with duct tape. It was perfect.

I loved how determined Stevie was, how wonderful of a friend Ryan was, how heart warming and kind Nora was. The pieces of this book all fell together perfectly, solidifying into a lesbian romance that I am not going to forget for a long while.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.