Forget Me Not

September 15, 2012
A novel in verse tells the intertwined stories of teen classmates Ally and Elijah as they deal with the pressures of high school and the consequences of deadly decisions. When a sexual photo of Ally is maliciously spread across her school, it tips off a cascade of horrific events that lead Ally to her school's rooftop for what she believes to be her only escape. Upon her decision to kill herself, Ally finds herself trapped in her school's deserted humanities hallway. H Hall, as it is known, is a sort of fantastical holding zone populated by ghoulish classmates that have all died at the school via various, mostly suicidal means. Having made a similar decision--and lived to regret it--Elijah helps Ally escape from H Hall and attempts to guide her toward a second chance at life. However, Ally soon learns that for this chance, she must decide if she can live with the pain of her reality. The novel unflinchingly incorporates serious topics of depressions, rape, alcohol and drug abuse, bullying and suicide as common components of high school. This blend of fantasy and potent reality succeeds. (Fiction. 13-18)

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December 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-Told from alternating perspectives, this novel in verse and screenplay begins with freshman Ally recounting her story about joining the dance team, becoming popular overnight, and then quickly losing it all when a photo of her in bed with Davis, the boyfriend of her school's queen bee, goes viral. Ally has no one to talk to; her "friends" on the dance team shun her; her father is emotionally unavailable; her best friend, Brianna, (Davis's sister) dumps her; and Elijah, the boy who's been in love with her for years, thinks Ally wants nothing to do with a "loser" like him. Not realizing that there's more to her feeling of disconnection than she understands, Ally hides herself in a haunted school hallway; there she meets the Hangman and several other ghosts who attempt to get her to stay with them forever. But Elijah begins trying to make Ally accept that she can face her classmates and begin an emotional and physical recovery. Ally's need for attention and adoration seems all too real, and the way she is undone is all too commonplace in today's schools where bullying and name-calling are made eerily simple through technology. However, too many scenes with the ghosts create a disruption from the otherwise well-written story, and other scenes and elements become a bit hackneyed and or cliched. This timely story has promise in its first half, but ultimately falls flat.-Lauren Newman, Northern Burlington County Regional Middle School, East Columbus, NJ

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