38 of 40 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Forget You, July 20 2010
By Jenny, Wondrous Reads - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Forget You (Paperback)
I've been struggling with this review for a while, and it's all thanks to my mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed parts of it, like the character of Doug and the girl torn between two boys, though I had some problems with Zoey. I just couldn't seem to like her, and I thought the way she treated both Brandon and Doug made next to no sense. She wasn't in any way written badly, in fact that's Echols' extremely strong point: she's a fantastic writer. I just felt that, in this case, Forget You was lacking something.
As I've previously mentioned many times, Echols is a great talent in YA. Going Too Far and The Boys Next Door are both brilliant examples of fiction for teens, and her boys always stand out from the crowd. Forget You's Doug is no exception; I loved him. Echols also isn't afraid to write a steamy scene or two, and when I say steamy, I mean steamy. Page 211 (in the ARC) is like the hottest scene in YA, and just has to be mentioned. I'm not saying I went back and read it a few times or anything... *cough*. Though I know for a fact I'm not the only one!
The one thing that really irked me about Zoey was why she even bothered with Brandon at all. To put it nicely, he was a complete idiot. I get that she couldn't remember the whole night, but surely she could have figured out who was the good guy and who wasn't worth a second thought?! Zoey is my least favourite of Echols' female protagonists, though I did like her more towards the end of the book.
Echols gets teenagers, and she writes them as if her own teenage years are a not-so-distant memory. She gets the drama of relationships and big decisions, and for that reason alone I will read everything she ever writes. Although I don't think Forget You is up there with her best books, Echols has more than proved that she's here for the long haul, and I look forward to whatever she comes up with next.
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Forget You by Jennifer Echols Review, July 19 2010
By K. Burgess - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Forget You (Paperback)
This was my first Jennifer Echols read and I realize I must have been living under a rock. Forget You was so much fun to read and with such an interesting plot concept I was entertained the whole way through. When Zoey's memory won't come back after a terrible car accident and she's left with only questions, Echols took readers on the journey of discovery with Zoey. I instantly felt sympathetic towards her crisis and situation and couldn't stop turning the pages. I shared her frustration and just had to know what really happened.
As much as I liked Zoey, there were times where I just wanted to shake her because as I was piecing together some of the facts I couldn't believe she wasn't seeing what I was seeing. Echols gave us a love triangle to rival some of the best and I definitely had my favorite front runner. Zoey struggled with more than just a lost memory. She was faced with feelings for more than one guy and didn't have all the facts to help her out either. I was chomping at the bit to find out what really happened to Zoey before the accident, and to find out what would happen between Zoey and Brandon and between Zoey and Doug.
Her plate was definitely full throughout the novel with her dysfunctional family problems, her oh so oblivious friends, her distant boyfriend, her brooding savior and of course her blank in way too many places memory. Zoey was in trouble and readers will be rooting for her from beginning to end and even after the last page is read. After becoming such a quick fan of Echols' writing and personality I can't wait to read more of her work to see what else she's going to be churning out next.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terrible, July 23 2011
By R. Aasen "Beckie" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Forget You (Paperback)
This book was just all around bad. I am usually a fan of YA novels, and the description was promising, but this book was awful. First, the characters have no depth at all. I was never really sucked into the plot and didn't really care what happened to anyone. The main character is supposed to be this really intelligent girl in AP classes, yet makes the dumbest choices through out the whole book. She knows Brandon is a player, sleeps with him anyway, and then considers him a bf throughout the rest of the text, despite the fact that he clearly is ignoring her and cheating on her. Also, she can't remember what happened and instead of just coming out and saying "hey I want to know what happened" she goes through the whole book trying to be some stupid detective to "crack the case." I got to the point where I just felt it wasn't believable anymore.
Secondly, the plot felt very forced and rushed. None of it made sense. Doug hates her, then all of a sudden he loves her? What the hell is that all about? And it takes place in a very short time span, so as a reader, I don't feel like there was enough time to develope any kind of intimate feelings between the two characters.
Thirdly, I felt that the ending wasn't fitting to the story. She finds out what happened between her "boyfriend" Brandon and Doug, and in a normal world, a girl would be pissed about it. But instead she finds this endearing and ends up with Doug anyway? Totally unrealistic and forced. It seemed like the author was trying too hard to make opposites attract but still wanted a big "wow" plot twist.
Her other book Going Too Far was slightly better but I had a lot of the same issues with that book as well. If you want real depth and believable change in characters, go read anything by Sarah Dessen.