Novel Review: Forget You by Jennifer Echols

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Simon & Schuster (MTV/Gallery Books)

Publish Date: 2010

Spoilers?: Not really.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

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.

Something Specific:

Quotes:

• "I had dated a lot of nice boys in the past few years. I’d never gotten serious with anyone, and that had been okay with me. I was only seventeen. I was willing to wait for the good stuff.” (Paperback, pg. 30)
• "But my mom had said people who’d grown up with money like her, and me, didn’t care about showing off that they had it, whereas people who’d grown up without it, like my dad, cared very much.” (Pg. 74) I don't know if I agree with that...
  
• "I took two. Examined the label. Under absolutely no circumstances was I to take more than two at a time. I shook out another and swallowed that. Read the label again and wondered who had written it and how serious she was. Then slammed the bottle into a drawer. It was too much, calculating the line between reasonable under the circumstances and overdose.” (Pg. 79)
• If I broke up with Brandon to be with Doug, even if Doug did want me, I wouldn’t Doug anymore and I’d pine away for Brandon. This was how it worked, being a cheater.” (Pg. 138)

The Cover:

This is a really typical boy-girl romantic cover. I'm not really a huge fan. It's got a lot of embarrassment, and it's not even particularly cute or girly. Still, I don't mind looking at it. It could represent the book better, but overall it's not too bad.

Review:

I’d been wanting to read this book for a while before I got it, and I got it several years ago at this point. It sounded really good at the time, seemed like something I would want to read. Then I heard some more stuff about Echols, and her writing style was starting to sound like it would be long and possibly boring, and then I was kind of dreading reading this, as it seemed like I was not going to like it at all. I started it and read about two chapters and was thinking I was correct. And then I read more and found out that I was very wrong.

I ended up enjoying this book to a surprising amount, and was really happy about that.

Zoey gets in a car crash, and forgets most of what happened the night of it. Her new boyfriend, Brandon, doesn’t seem to be around as often as she thinks he should be. And Doug, a boy that she previously did not have a very friendly relationship with, is acting like something happened between them. Plus her mother’s in a mental hospital and her father doesn’t want anyone to know, including her best friends.

I didn’t mind Zoey. My biggest problem was her fixation on Brandon. I just did not understand that.

I mean, they’re friends before they get together, she knows that he’s always with a new girl, he’s never showed much of an interest in her or proclaimed his love for her, and yet after the one night they fool around, she expects them to be in an exclusive relationship. Without even having a conversation with him about it. For a majority of the book he’s not around, not talking to her, not there when she expects him to be, and yet she thinks they’re in a serious relationship. I could not fathom her reasons for this throughout the whole book.

Aside from that, though. I liked Doug, a lot. He’s quiet, doesn’t talk about himself much, even if he’s relatively friendly with the people at school. They had a thing a while back, but now aren’t talking, but then after the crash he’s super friendly and she doesn’t understand why. I liked him, a lot. He’s sweet to her, he helps her when she needs him.

The car crash. I did not like everyone’s reasons for keeping what happened a secret, or why she didn’t tell anyone she couldn’t remember. That should have been cleared up a lot sooner, and things would have been a lot less complicated.

Then there’s the problem with her mother, which is just horrible and ridiculous. That seemed to be better by the end of the book, though, which is good. I didn’t like Zoey’s father, although I would have perhaps liked them to talk more, maybe to see some reasoning or maturing on his side.

There were several sexy scenes in this book, some even rather detailed, and that surprised me. I really liked it, too. That, and the fact that I did enjoy several of the characters, and the writing, has made me want to pick up more of Echols’ books. She’s been added to my list to collect.