Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick
A Novel
Title: Forget Me Not
Author: Alyson Derrick
Publisher: Simon & Schuster BYFR
Publication Year: 2023
ISBN: 9781665902373
Rating: 5 stars
I bought this book on my Pittsburgh bookstore tour. I hadn’t heard anything about it before, but I was able to get a signed copy because I had just missed an event with the author at the store. I bought the book based on the amount of staff recommendations without really even reading the jacket copy to see what it was about. The cashier was really excited about my pick and so I felt like I was probably in for a treat and then put it away for a bit because I was hoping to make it a Pride Month read. And sure, it is a perfect read for Pride Month, but I wish I had read it right after I bought it and that I had been in Pittsburgh in time for the author event. I loved this book and I’m bummed I took this long to get to reading it.
Stevie Green and Nora Martin have been completely and hopelessly in love pretty much from the moment they met. The only problem is that their relationship likely won’t be accepted in their conservative Pennsylvania town or by Stevie’s extremely Catholic family. So for the past two years, they have kept their relationship a secret from everyone while they’ve been planning and saving up for a new and free life in California after high school graduation.
Shortly after they graduate but before they make their great escape, Stevie falls into a ravine in the woods of the Martin farm where she and Nora go to be together. Nora manages to save Stevie’s life and pull her out of the ravine and carry her unconscious body out of the woods to get help. Stevie is put into a coma for two weeks to help her brain heal from the trauma. Stevie’s parents know Nora is the one who saved their daughter’s life, and that she comes to the hospital every day, but they don’t know who she is to Stevie.
When Stevie wakes up from her coma, unfortunately, neither does she. She has amnesia of the last two years of her life, which means she doesn’t remember who Nora is and Stevie doesn’t even remember that she is a lesbian. Nora is crushed and doesn’t know how to tell Stevie the truth without completely overwhelming her. Stevie is scared and confused and trying unsuccessfully to put the pieces of her life back together, but Stevie’s old friends and Stevie’s mom see this as a perfect opportunity to heal the distance in their relationships that have happened since Stevie has learned more about herself.
Stevie’s friends convince her she had a crush on Ryan, the only other Asian kid in town and a waiter at their local diner. Stevie doesn’t feel that way about Ryan but if her friends are telling her that it’s true, she must have felt that way once. Trying to get back into her old life, Stevie asks Ryan out and tries to force herself to feel more than platonic feelings for him. In the process, she sees who her friends have become in the two years she’s forgotten and isn’t sure she likes them anymore. Meanwhile, Stevie’s mom, who is her best friend as far as she can remember, tells Stevie that they had also grown apart. That Stevie had shut her out of her life. Stevie feels incredibly guilty and works to try to make up for the past two years. Stevie is shocked to learn that she had committed to staying in their small town and going to the community college when all she had ever wanted was to use college to get out of there, but she is hopeful that staying at home will give her a chance to repair her relationship with her mom.
While trying to navigate these relationships that she doesn’t remember distancing herself from and trying to re-learn her job as a barista, Stevie feels herself drawn to Nora. First she thinks it’s just for friendship because she thinks she and Nora didn’t know each other before the accident and she doesn’t feel any pressure to be her old self around Nora, but as she starts to feel the things she wishes she was feeling for Ryan with Nora, Stevie starts to wonder who she had become in the two missing years.
Home alone one afternoon, Stevie searches her room for clues about the person she was before her accident. She finds a shoebox hidden in the vent and in the shoebox are tons of photos and mementos of her relationship with Nora. She is shocked to discover she was dating a girl, but her feelings toward Nora make more sense now. However, she feels betrayed. All this time she has been hanging out with Nora, Nora never even mentioned it. Angry, Stevie goes out to the farm and confronts Nora. They kiss and Stevie feels all the passion she wishes she felt with Ryan but she doesn’t know how she could have given up everything in her life for this. She leaves and heads to the diner to kiss Ryan to convince herself it will feel the same. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
Eventually, Stevie opens up to Ryan about her sexuality. He is happy to be her friend and encourages her to apologize to Nora if that’s really how she feels. They make up and Nora fills in the gaps of the last two years of Stevie’s life. A lot of it—like how she had outgrown her friends and Stevie and Nora’s plan to run away to California makes sense, but some of it—like Stevie cutting her mother out of her life doesn’t. Stevie and Nora begin dating in secret again, but still hoping to make things right with her mom, Stevie decides to stay in town and go to community college and Nora decides to stay with her.
It all comes to a head when Nora’s mom catches the girls in a compromising position and throws Nora out of the house. In desperation and looking for somewhere to go, Nora finally tells Stevie the last secret she had been keeping: there was a reason old Stevie had decided to distance herself from her mother. Nora is able to stay at Ryan’s for a few days, but with Ryan about to leave for college, that is an extremely short term solution. Realizing all Nora was willing to give up to stay in town with Stevie, Stevie revives their plans to go to California and they plan to leave in time for Stevie to prepare for the fall semester at UCLA. As sure as she is that her future is in California with Nora, Stevie wonders if she is going to be able to say goodbye to her parents forever once they learn who she really is.
The first and most shallow thing I loved about this book was the cover. Not only is the jacket cool with the illustration and the foiled title and spine, but the cover beneath the jacket is done in a beautiful red foil that makes this book a show piece.
Because printing costs as well as supply costs have gone way up since the pandemic, a lot of publishers have cut back on the fancy covers to keep costs down and I’m glad to see a cover with a lot of effects on a book that didn’t cost like $50.
But aesthetics aside, I loved the book. I think the premise sounds a little hokey and maybe like a soap opera, but the writing is so well done that falling into a ravine and getting amnesia for just the amount of time you’ve known you were a lesbian doesn’t come across as ridiculous in the book as it does when you say it out of context. I thought Nora, Stevie, and Ryan were really well written and were relatively complex characters. Like 100 Days, this is another YA book that doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff. It discusses really difficult topics like knowing when to step back from toxic relationships, abuse, acceptance, and racism.
I also don’t want to get too much into it and ruin the ending, but it also shows that people can experience growth. Just because someone isn’t understanding or accepting doesn’t mean that that will always be the case. People can learn and grow and it’s ok to want that from those you love.
I did cry multiple times while reading this book and it did make me so sad that there are a lot of kids like Nora and Stevie out there hiding who they are because they won’t be accepted by their families and communities. It also made me sad that there are kids who feel and are unsafe because of this lack of acceptance. I hope this book is able to make it into their hands and make them feel hopeful for their futures.
Despite being kind of a sad book about heavy topics, I think it has a happy ending and has the makings of a YA classic.