Remember Me
by Estelle Laure
High School    Wednesday/St. Martin’s    272 pp.    g
3/22    978-1-250-26193-9    $18.99
e-book ed.  978-1-250-26194-6    $10.99

If someone offered you the opportunity to forget your most painful memories, would you take it? In the year 2032, it’s not a rhetorical question. Seventeen-year-old Blue notices some disturbing gaps in her memory; then she meets Adam, a boy her age who seems familiar. Adam helps Blue discover that she elected to undergo a medical procedure, called Release, to erase all memories of him. But why? Desperate for answers, Blue convinces the assistant at the memory clinic (which is called, appropriately, Tabula Rasa), to reverse the procedure. In extended flashbacks that make up most of the book’s second half, Blue remembers falling in love with Adam—and faces the tragedy that precipitated her decision. Blue finds strength in experiencing and acknowledging her feelings: “I let [pain] break me apart, and I’m amazed every single time at how I come back together and am whole.” She has the support of family and friends, too, including Adam; her grandmother; her best friend, Turtle; and Turtle’s nonbinary partner, Jack. While the science-fiction element allows for an intriguing storytelling device, this is really a story about grief—and the love and courage it takes to live with it—told in lyrical, emotional prose.

From the March/April 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.