Forgotten by Cat Patrick

Target Audience: Teens/Young Adults
Genre: Romance/Fiction

Forgotten is one of those books that oddly enough, you won't ever forget. There's a lot of meaning to it and I found the premise really intriguing to say the least. London Lane is a high school girl who remembers her future but can't remember her past. At exactly the same time every night her memory literally resets herself.
The result is that she can't remember important events, the cute boy at school or even what she wore the day before.  But as certain events start to unfold and she starts to 'remember' different things it becomes clear that there's more to her life and family that she previously realised.

I loved this book and it really made me realise the importance of memories. Whether good or bad we do need them so as to remember love, joy, happiness but also pain and sorrow. Having said that, at times during this book I did envy London her ability to forget everything as like everyone I have experienced painful things but the lesson is that we need to learn from such events and remember them clearly. It is rather sad that London learns this herself only, of course, every day it's completely new to her and freshly painful but then she also gets the joys of discovering happy things over again, even if it is a bit confusing at times.
My overall opinion of the 'forgetting' she goes through is that it isn't a blessing but neither is it a curse, it's sort of something in-between those two ends of the spectrum.

The characters in this are incredible and it becomes clear that London's ability places a strain on her relationships sometimes. Perhaps the most interesting of these was her relationship with her friend Jamie as they were both opposites and they go through so much during the course of the novel including some not so nice things.
Luke was another favourite of mine and their relationship was truly fascinating and reminded me a little of the film 'Fifty first dates' in which she has to be reminded of her boyfriend every day. It was beautiful but tainted with a slight sadness.

I will say that there is more to the plot than a romance and there are several mysteries throughout the novel that I won't spoil on here for obvious reasons. I do think there were a few loose ends but nothing major and one message came across loud and clear whilst reading this book: It is ALWAYS possible to change the future and nothing is set in stone. This is a powerfully emotional and truly inspirational novel that I would recommend to everyone out there.