Forget You by Jennifer Echols

Book review #57
Forget You by Jennifer Echols
Rating: Five stars

Summary:(taken from Goodreads)
WHY CAN’T YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU FORGET . . .  AND WHAT YOU REMEMBER?  There’s a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four- year old girlfriend. Like Zoey’s fear that the whole town will find out about her mom’s nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. Feeling like her life is about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she’s 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 the next day there’s one thing she can’t remember at all—the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug—of all people— suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life—a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug.

I don't even know where to begin. I'm kind of beating myself up for not reading any of Jennifer Echols's books before. After reading Forget You, she has officially made it to my favorite author's list. She just has this way of creating realistic characters combined with intense scenes that it's almost...magical. 

Zoey is living a complicated life, but her main goal is to trying to block it all out by being perfect. Her dad is living with his knocked up girlfriend-who is his main priority at the time. Her mother got sent to the mental hospital and then there's Brandon, her guy friend, who she finally went farther with. Things are going OK at the moment, she just made the move on Brandon and things on the swim team or going good. But everything changes the night after the accident. She doesn't remember anything and suddenly mysterious Doug carved a space into her life. She struggles to piece together the details of the night to actually make sense of her life.

There's a lot of things I loved about this book, but I would have to say the writing was my favorite. The writing was scrumptious. After I finished reading the book, I curled back into bed and reread my favorite scenes. Jennifer Echols has a way of making the words flow off the pages making it impossible  to stop reading. It wasn't even that much of a mystery, but I had to find out what really happened that night. Oh and did I mention the love scenes? They were hot! Each and every moment Doug and Zoey shared together were pretty unforgettable, sexual tension filled the air no matter where they were.

The characters were the second key to making this such an amazing read. Zoey. Some may hate or love her. I think the reason some people didn't love this book so much is mainly because Zoey can come off as annoying. Her feelings towards Brandon were unexplainable (I don't want to give anything away), but honestly I knew that she really knew what kind of guy Brandon was. It was all to keep her "perfect" image.  I could relate to the trouble she was going through, so to me she wasn't an unlikeable character at all. Doug! Oh my goodness. I think it's impossible not to love him. Sexy, sweet, and sensitive, but not perfect with his "criminal" history. It's safe to say I would love to have a Doug in real life. Even the smaller characters were very well developed and  memorable.

Overall, Forget You is addictive, sexy, and thoughtful. It's simple, yet so complex. And I almost forget to mention how honest it is. Jennifer Echol's actually goes there and addresses those sometimes embarrassing subjects. If you were wondering if Forget You lives up to the hype, personally I think it certainly does. I would reread this book in a heartbeat, so go ahead and buy yourself a copy :)