Forget You by Jennifer Echols (Young Adult, 9/10)

April 2013, Simon and Schuster, 292 pages, Paperback, Review copy

Themes: having family with mental illness, having family who don't care for you, feeling alone, being vulnerable, being in a car accident, losing your memory, friendship highs and lows, being cheated on, confusion over life stuff, trying to figure out what you want, being forced to face difficult situations you'd rather ignore, glimmers of hope

Content: strong teen romance, suicide, bad language

Summary from Simon and Schuster

There's a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked-up his twenty-four-year-old girlfriend. Like her mom's nervous breakdown. Like Doug, the darkly handsome bad boy, who taunts her at school… Worried that her life is becoming a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, by making sure that she's perfect - 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 can't remember anything about the night it happened. She should have been with Brandon, but he doesn't seem to know anything about the accident - and, more confusingly, doesn't seem to care. Only Doug, who saved her from the wreckage, has the answers Zoey so desperately needs, but he's the last person she wants to rely on, especially as he's acting like something happened between them that night. Which can't be true, can it? But with her thoughts full of Doug and strangely empty of Brandon, Zoey starts to question her feelings for the two boys and whether being perfect is more important than following your heart.

Nayuleska's thoughts 

 I picked this book as I was intrigued by the amnesia side of it, which certainly didn't disappoint. The family dramas that Zoey endures are hard-hitting: no matter how she tries to pretend the world is fine it clearly isn't and her true friends bring out her scared self. She learns a lot about herself through her mistakes. 

You can find out more on Jennifer's website.

Suggested read

For more hard going teen drama check out Wake by Lisa McMann which also deals with parents having issues Young Adult, 9/10)