TEST
Don’t You Forget About Me reminded me a lot of Jojo Moyes’s work, especially her book Me Before You. Set in England, it features an underemployed heroine with a close family, an undeserving boyfriend, and who idolizes a specific piece of her wardrobe (this book’s heroine, Georgina Horspool, adores her pink coat in the way that Louisa Clark loved her bumble bee tights). It’s also what I consider a ‘sturdy’ book: each part – writing, characters, and storylines form a collectively enjoyable reading experience.
Georgina Horspool is not living her best life. Fired from her waitressing job in the town she’s hardly ever left, she gets herself a new job bartending at The Wicker, which she finds out is co-owned by Luke McCarthy, her teenage self’s old love. He acts like he doesn’t remember her, and Georgina doesn’t ask why – at first. (If you’re worried this is an amnesia story, it isn’t.) But she’s got more keeping her up at night than just this. Her ex-boyfriend cheated on her and hasn’t learned the meaning of Graceful Exit. Her family is judging her. Then, The Wicker becomes host to “the Share Your Shame writing competition.” Three topics are featured: My Worst Day at Work, My Worst Date, and My Worst Day at School. Georgina enters, and, throughout the story, she works her way through her current professional, romantic, and personal problems while addressing their origins partly through the different topics.
Perhaps one of the greatest compliments I can pay the book is to mention that I eventually stopped taking notes while reading and had to remind myself to start up again 160 pages later. I’d become so absorbed that I ceased to practice my usual reviewer habits. The story follows Georgina as she addresses her emotional and literal past, which is fairly loaded with unresolved issues involving grief about the loss of her father, and the effects of a sexual assault (it should be noted this is dealt with in an explicit scene that some may find uncomfortable).
At one point early in the book, Georgina reflects on how her therapist asked:
“What if it’s not what happened with this boy you regret, it’s you? It’s the you who you left behind.”
This really sums up the book’s relationship to romance: while the events of Georgina’s love life are significant, they are catalysts for the overall story, which is Georgina’s, not Georgina and Luke’s. I will say though, if you’re about to drop this book because you think it isn’t romantic: STOP. It is romantic, and Richard Curtis (of Love Actually and Notting Hill, and who is referenced in the text) would be proud of the end of story payoff. Ms. McFarlane understands how to write an all-in, heart-throbbing monologue.
Georgina wants to be a writer. The dangerous thing about having a writer hero/heroine in any book, especially one like this with a first person PoV, is that you’d better be a strong enough writer to convince the reader that your hero/heroine could be one. Thankfully, Georgina perceives and describes her life in a style that is detailed and amusing, so that when her friend says “you’re a funny writer, you’ve got a way with words” you’re inclined to agree that’s true.
One of the reasons I especially liked this book is that the secondary characters are strong, and the storylines they play into are entertaining and well-developed. Georgina has an atrocious ex-boyfriend, but he isn’t a throw-away character. In fact, his relationship with Georgina becomes an entire plotline as he attempts to win her back while simultaneously bolstering his career as a comedian (and he’s one of the best Love-to-Hate-Him characters I can recall). Georgina’s family is similar. All the characters are nods to stereotypes but at the same time the most interesting and pleasantly nuanced versions of stereotypes: Difficult Mother, Irritating Stepfather, Complicated Sister.
All this said, I did think Georgina-as-author and Don’t You Forget About Me could have used a bit of editing and restructuring. The story starts with a flashback to Georgina and Luke falling in love. Then, after one chapter, it switches to the present and spends over sixty-five pages without Luke, instead setting up Georgina’s employment and romantic situations in chapters that feel rather long. I found this disorienting and felt like I was waiting on the ‘real’ (romantic) story to start, until I realized this was the story. After that though, I settled in.
Ultimately, if you’re in the mood to read something other than genre romance but want to stay in a version of the world that’s founded on values of love and tenderness, I thoroughly recommend Don’t You Forget About Me.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Visit our Amazon Storefront
Grade: B+
Book Type: Women's Fiction
Sensuality: Kisses
Review Date: 05/10/19
Publication Date: 03/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Part-time cowgirl, part-time city girl. Always working on converting all my friends into romance readers ("Charlotte, that was the raunchiest thing I have ever read!").
Related Reviews
I’m reading this right now and enjoying it. I haven’t read any JoJo Moyes, so I can’t compare – but I’m definitely getting a Bridget Jones-esque vibe from it. I’m super bummed I don’t see a higher heat rating though. I was hoping for more as the novel progressed.
I’m commenting though, because of strange coincidences. I’m always so surprised by them, although lately they seem to keep happening more frequently than usual. Case in point: I just finished Crushing It, by Lorelei Parker, and the protagonist participated in a contest IN A BAR with people revealing MORTIFYING past incidents. I thought it was such a funny idea – and then lo and behold, here it is again! This iteration is much better by the way.
Anyway, it’s such a strange coincidence! Does anyone else feel like this happens to them a lot?
I think so! I read three books in a row where the hero runs out to the pharmacy or declares his great desire to run out to the pharmacy to buy a woman tampons. Suddenly, women’s menstruation is used in contemporary romances as an example of how caring and educated men are today about women’s hormonal cycles.
On the topic of McFarlane, I’m just finishing up If I Never Met You, which I Love, and I think from Goodreads reviews and from friends who avidly read her books, high heat ratings is not an aspect of her writing. It doesn’t bother me at all, but for readers who want higher heat, she’s probably not the author for them.
I wish I could think of all the random coincidences that occurred in recent memory…but since I can’t remember them. Ha!
I really did wish we had more of the actual romance between these two, but I didn’t need actual physical contact. It’s still getting a super high grade from me (4.5 stars?). I’ll be reading If I Never Met You, too. But not until it’s at my library. This is another one that I’m scratching my head over the pricing. WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE?
Yeah, so many new romance books are very expensive now and that is a shame, especially right now with economies tanking all over the world!
99p in the UK! It makes no sense.
Finished this last night. Excellent story. Her Worst Day at School speech was so sad and moving. Yeesh!
This sounds pretty cute, will look it up!