ARC Review: (Don't You) Forget About Me

A Stand-Alone Review

Title: Don't You Forget About Me

Author: Kate Karyus Quinn

Release Date: June 14 , 2014

Publisher: HarperTeen

Source: HarperCollins (ARC)

I received a copy of this book from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. No compensation of any kind have been received for this review and all of the opinions in this review are solely my own.

Synopsis:

Welcome to Gardnerville.

A place where no one gets sick. And no one ever dies.

Except...
There’s a price to pay for paradise. Every fourth year, the strange power that fuels the town exacts its payment by infecting teens with deadly urges. In a normal year in Gardnerville, teens might stop talking to their best friends. In a fourth year, they’d kill them.

Four years ago, Skylar’s sister, Piper, was locked away after leading sixteen of her classmates to a watery grave. Since then, Skylar has lived in a numb haze, struggling to forget her past and dull the pain of losing her sister. But the secrets and memories Piper left behind keep taunting Skylar—whispering that the only way to get her sister back is to stop Gardnerville’s murderous cycle once and for all.

First sentence: It was a bizarre May day parade at midnight instead of midday.

My thoughts:

I just want to thank HarperCollins again for their generous hearts in providing this book. I just cannot thank them enough. This is my third official ARC Review. I might not be as good as the long time reviewers yet but I will be better in time.

Another suspense book. I'm mostly into dystopian but it seems I've been reading a lot of paranormal books lately. Since I needed to finish reading and reviewing all the ARCs before the next semester starts, I decided to read Don't You Forget Me. “Pairing the otherworldly touch of Tuck Everlasting and the eerie suspense of Stephen King (Don't You) Forget About Me is perfect for fans of Maggie Stifvater's The Raven Boys.”

I have read or encountered neither of Tuck Everlasting, The Raven Boys and any Stephen King's books. I really have no idea what this book would be like. I thought it would have creepy and disturbing things like the last suspense book I've read but I'm not so sure. Before reading I thought it would be something like the Beautiful Creatures by Kamie Garcia and Margaret Stohl. But it isn't. I haven't read anything like it yet. The style of writing of this book is nearly poetic. Just like Tahereh's writing style of Shatter Me but without the numbers. I liked the writing style of this book, it's beautiful.

“Those secrets run through me like cotton candy, sweet and airy and insubstantial. The others are like sticky spiderwebs – they cling no matter how you try to pull them away.” - (pg. 37)

It was slow paced but it doesn't make you stop to read it. It's a bizarre read. Everything about this book is weird. The good kind of weird. Gardnerville is Bizzaroville. Gardnerville is a town where all kind of otherwordly things happen and it just leaves you there like, “whaaaaaat?” People with otherwordly abilities like read secrets like it's nothing but something being handed to you as nothing. Making people bend to your will. Charming people to love you with no boundaries. Absorbing pain and death for other people. Making people blink out of existence. Willing people into existing. Those kinds of things.

When you live in Gardenville, the kind of paradise most people dream in this wicked, sickly world. You would never get sick, you never get old. But nothing good comes with a great cost. Every fourth year in Gardenville, something, (okay the most bizzare of the bizzarest things) happens in the place. Where teens die and not survive puberty. That is the cost of living in Gardenville, your life is in the brink of danger every other four years.

It was just a bit hard to follow the story because the chapters of the book is alternating from the past and the present. Sky has lost her sister and cannot bear her lost. She cannot unforget her. Normally, if you've lost a love one you'll eventually forget about them but not Sky. She cannot let her go. She clings to her even more. She refuses to believe she's gone and does everything to bring her back. So she drinks these pills to make her forget even just for some hours.

“They take away the sorrow, they take away the pain, and they leave the great gaping holes in my life. “You'll only remember the good times.”” - Sky (pg 55)

(I'd like to have some of the pills of my own sometime.) But her mind commits her to memory again, the things she wants to forget the most, are the ones that she really cannot forget no matter how many pills she take. Even if this book is a thriller, suspense, it has a slight touch of sweet romance. A different kind of love in the shortest of times.

“So, was it worth? What I mean is...Is it worth having something good when it's gonna be taken away? When it's only temporary and later you're left wondering if you imagined it anyway?” - Sky (pg 273)

If you have issues on memories that you couldn't let go or memories you would want to let go, this book might be seeking for you. You need to read this so that you'll know how important and essential our experiences and memories to our existence. They define us.

“Remember Me. But do it the right way. Remember it all. The good, the bad and the ugly. I'd rather be forgotten than remembered the right way.” - Piper (pg 281)

Sky is someone who I can compare myself to. I let go of the past that easily not really caring what had happened and what will happen tomorrow. All we do is believe to this: “It's okay, don't worry.” But little do we know that our past makes the most of us and our homes made us to what we really are to this day. Read this book, it's raw of emotion and feelings. It may not be the book you'd scream about, but it's the kind of book that will leave a mark in your mind and heart.

“Forgetting the past doesn't change it, and if we want a better ending we'll have to go out and create it for ourselves somewhere on the other side of the mountain” (pg 309)

Rate: 4/5 stars