Review: Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick

 I received this book from Simon & Schuster as a part of their book club favorites program. 

Forget Me Not is the story of two young women who have made plans to leave their closed-minded hometown and move to California to be together. Just before they're about to move, Stevie (our point of view character) visits Nora on her farm and has an accident. Stevie wakes up in the hospital with no memory of the past two years. No memory of Nora or coming out. Stevie has to figure out life with no memories in an older body. She finds that things aren't as they were two years ago. She doesn't hang out with her friends, she doesn't hang out with her mom, and her dad is mostly uninterested in talking to her. To relieve some of the pressure of remembering, she hangs out with Nora, who she believes she doesn't have a past with. As the two spend more time together, Stevie starts to feel things she hadn't felt before. 

This was a great coming-of-age story that I really enjoyed reading. The love was very sweet, but it was really about Stevie finding herself again. The small town they live in is reminiscent of the small towns I've lived in, where people grow up to be closed-minded. I think many queer people and people of color have had experiences like Stevie's where their friends are much more open-minded when they're younger but grow up to be just as awful as their parents. I read this book in two days. I was absolutely in love with it from the first few pages. The author actually co-wrote another book with her wife recently. 

I highly recommend this book to everyone, but especially to queer people and people who are struggling with their own identity. Despite a lot of the harder stuff, it really is a feel-good read. I was sobbing by the end of it (in a good way). As far as content warnings are concerned, there is homophobia, xenophobia, Asian hate, mild sexual content, bodily injury, memory loss, and more. Please check out StoryGraph for a full list of content warnings as provided by other readers. 

As always, happy reading!