Title: (Don't You) Forget About Me Author: Kate Karyus Quinn
Published: June 10, 2014
Genre(s): Paranormal
Page Count: 336
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads: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.
My past experience with Kate Karyus Quinn told me to expect the strange, and that’s exactly what I got. (Don’t You) Forget About Me is a weird YA paranormal/mystery/horror book that has readers asking questions all the way up until “The End”—and it does so very well. Readers who enjoy the weird and different should look into Quinn’s novels, especially this one.
The story takes place in Gardnerville, a magical town where nobody gets sick and everyone has a long life. But this comes at a price—every fourth year, some teenager will kill others via magical means. Gardnerville has a reformatory for these students, but maybe that does more harm than good? (Don’t You) Forget About Me really focuses on unveiling the mysteries of Gardnerville and its magic, through the eyes of Skylar, our protagonist.
Skylar’s own sister was one of the teens who lost control, four years ago. Now it’s another fourth year, and somebody is going to lose it, sometime soon. Quinn fills Skylar’s narration with a dark, heavy foreboding as the story marches steadily towards climax. The reader knows something huge has to happen, and something huge does.
In its initial stages, (Don’t You) Forget About Me is somewhat confusing. Skylar is a frequent user of a drug called Forget-Me-Not that whites out all the senses and causes the user to lose memory. Certain chapters might be extremely disorganized and hazy, while others might relive the same scene twice, once under the influence, and once through memories of another person after Skylar’s sobered up. It honestly took some getting used to, but well before the halfway point, Skylar stops using, and the book’s storyline becomes much clearer and more coherent, which was great, since some truly strange happenings go down.
The ending itself, when all the answers come, is definitely the most important part of the book. Its success also really depends on the reader. Skylar spends the entirety of (Don’t You) Forget About Me looking for answers, and when she finds them, they may or may not be satisfying. I’ve read reviews where readers have gone both ways. Personally, I’d already guessed what would happen, so I wasn’t surprised so much as vindicated. I was proud that I’d guessed correctly, but also disappointing that Quinn hadn’t shocked me and thrown me for a loop. So for me, the ending was a mixed bag.
One of the stand-out aspects of this book for me, though, was Quinn’s prose. It was especially evident in the opening chapters and the prologue, but throughout the novel, I was really amazed by how strong and atmospheric the author’s writing is. I noted the same thing in Another Little Piece, as well. Quinn writes with the experience and talent of an established author, and oftentimes her prose is mature and complex in a way that seems to go beyond typical YA expectations. All of that combines to make (Don’t You) Forget About Me an unusual and memorable book that really stands out from other paranormal novels.
(Don’t You) Forget About Me is strange and mysterious and unique—and it works very well for Kate Karyus Quinn. I really enjoyed this exploration of Gardnerville and its weird history and happenings, and though the author’s prose supported her setting. Certain things didn’t work as well for me as they might have for others, but overall, I found this to be a spellbinding and intelligent novel.
