I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

Wow, this book is full of some heavy stuff! So much grief and depression at the beginning. I'm really glad that Luca and Hazel were able to help each other through their difficult times. I love that neither of them pressured each other to talk about their thoughts and feelings, but let it naturally come out in discussion.

And there was no judgement, not really. They listened, understood, and they were just there for each other. All of them were, but Luca and Hazel more so since they both had their own grief to deal with.

I'm so glad I finally got around to reading this novel! And I'm kicking myself for not reading it when it was actually considered an eARC.

A great main character dealing with a not great situation and ill mother, when she is suddenly shipped off to an estranged father's for the summer. Suddenly the summer passes by and she has not heard that she can come home, yet and finds herself feeling very alone in a new school. Readers will relate to the struggle to accept difficult, heart breaking change.

I tend to stay away from very sad subject matter when I read, but this was a great book dealing with the heartbreak of someone losing a loved one to Alzheimer's disease.
Hazel's mother has early onset of Alzheimer's disease, and soon she can't take care of her mother any longer. When her mother is admitted to the hospital, she is forced to move from England to Australia to live with the father she has never known. Hazel resolves to move back to be with her mother as soon as possible and sees her stay in Australia as a short one. As Hazel makes good friends and her affection for her father begins to grow, she begins to change her mind. But if she stays in Australia, can she accept her mother's illness and continue to live her life in spite of everything?
I enjoyed this book for the most part, and I thought several difficult issues were addressed well (Alzheimer's, the death of a loved one, family relationships, moving on through difficult circumstances, etc.). The characters were drawn very well, and they each grew and changed by the end of the book. I didn't care for the profanity and the excess consumption of alcohol. The book would've been better without all of that - the story was good, and those things distract from the plot. Overall, I'm glad to see more books addressing real world issues and life struggles.
I received a review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

"Monsters are monsters...It doesn't make a difference if they're from space or your mind."

Hazel, our English teenaged MC, is forced to move to Australia to spend what she hopes will be a "semester only" with her new-to-her father. Struggling to adjust to her new life down under, Hazel eventually tires of evading her emotions and starts to let people in.

Covering everything from depression and assault to friendships and healing, this YA debut seems to have it all. And while I enjoyed the friendships and the strong family aspects, some of the chapters/passages felt repetitive and almost preachy, which really reduced the emotional impact.

As someone who spent a semester in Australia where it remained my "could've been," this did bring back a lot of memories, and for that I am thankful and appreciative.

Full RTC.

Summary:
Seventeen-year-old Hazel has been sent to Australia from her home in London to live with a stranger, who just happens to be her father. Hazel desperately wants to get back to her mother who is hospitalized in England. However, when Hazel meets Red and Luca, the twin brothers, who live next door she begins to build a new life that she may not be willing to leave.

Review:
I had a hard time trying to decide what I should write about this book. Basically, “Don’t Forget About Me” was a pleasant book about dealing with loss. There are many aspects that feel realistic and should move this book above the average YA book about grieving. In particular, the journey the characters traveled while grappling with their feeling felt believable and real and, oh so, relatable. However, this book didn’t quite move above the average YA tear-jerker. The issue, for me, lies with the main character. I never felt like I actually knew Hazel beyond her immediate family issues. We know that Hazel is seventeen, she has never met her father, and that her mother is in a hospital in England but everything else is just a black void. Who is she and why should we care about her beyond her family issues? We don’t know. The book feels more about grief then it does about a character grieving.

Bottom Line: “Don’t Forget About Me” is a sweet novel about moving on after a loss that will appeal to teen readers who enjoy reading about people trying to deal with emotional crisis however it doesn’t pack the emotional punch that other novels in the genre delivery.

Final Rating: 3.5 out of 5

I received an eARC of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In this quiet novel, the reader explores love, loss, and what makes a family. Hazel’s had a bit of a rough go - she’s spent the past few years being her mother’s caretaker. Newly arrived in Australia, she’s grieving for the mother she no longer has, and for being out of her comfort zone. Slowly, with the help of others, she faces the fact that her mother won’t be getting better. What I really enjoyed about the story was the relationship between Hazel and her father, Graham, and the friendships between all the characters - even secondary characters like Marc and Claire. This is a quiet jewel of a novel, and one I hope others will love as well.

Hazel is in Australia with a father she has never met. She has left her home in England, and readers won’t find out until later what has happened to her mom. Almost immediately she is befriended by Red, the son of the chef who works at her dad’s restaurant. Red’s twin brother, Luca, is troubled by grief, and Hazel finds herself drawn to him. As months pass, she and Luca grow closer, and she must finally be honest about her mother and decide whether to stay in Australia or not.

The story can be predictable in places, but the characters are interesting and well-drawn.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. While I liked parts of it, I didn’t totally connect with the main character, Hazel, which left me feeling a little disappointed overall.

The main theme of the novel is that life goes on after loss, as hard as it may be to accept that it does when you are grieving. Hazel lost her family and her home in England when her mother had to be put into a nursing home due to early-onset Alzheimer’s, forcing Hazel to move to Australia to live with the father she’s never met. Even though she keeps insisting she will go back to England at some point, Hazel makes friends who comfort her in her new life. In particular, she connects with Luca, who is also struggling with loss. Both Hazel and Luca slowly adjust to the new normal in their lives, finding promise in the future that allows them to cope with past pain.

The author does a great job of illustrating her message that life goes on through Hazel’s and Luca’s experiences. In particular, she really demonstrates the importance of connecting with other people for support. Luca and Hazel share the closest bond, which is natural since they have both lost people who are important to them. But the friendship between Hazel and Red, Luca’s brother, and Red’s attempts to communicate with his brother illustrate the value of someone just being there when needed, even if, as with Luca, it isn’t always easy. The secondary characters of Maddie and Hunter, Hazel’s and Luca’s school friends, also show how important maintaining a sense of normalcy can be as a form of unspoken support. (They add a bit of much needed humor to the story, too.)

I had a problem connecting with Hazel, though, because I just didn’t completely believe in the character. Hazel’s reactions often weren’t what I would expect from a teenage girl experiencing a huge upheaval in her life. For example, Hazel didn’t even know her father’s name until he comes to England to pick her up and take her back to Australia to live with him. She has a vague idea that he didn’t ever want her, though. Does she ask him about it? Display any sign of anger or confusion about living with a stranger? Nope, she just moves in. The only sign that she isn’t completely at ease with the situation is that she holds him at arm’s length, insisting that she’ll eventually be going back to England. That lack of anger, of resentment about what has happened to her, holds true throughout most of the book, and just doesn’t strike me as completely realistic. Hazel seems a bit too good to be true, even if the circumstances of her life have forced her to grow up fast. In fact, that would seem to me to make it even more likely for her to lash out at some point, but even when she finally confronts her father, it’s all very understated.

So, while I liked the book, I didn’t fall in love with it. I’d recommend it if to readers who are looking for a book about working through grief and moving on, though, because it does do a good job conveying that message.

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

What I Liked

Nearly from the beginning I felt connected to the characters. I wanted everything to work out perfectly for all of them. For me, if a book causes me to have this type of connection it has well written characters. I recently read a book and I felt nearly nothing for the characters and it made reading it dull and boring even with all the excitement happening with the plot. Another thing that I truly loved about this book was not only how I connected with the characters, but how they connected with one another. Both friendship wise and family wise I enjoyed reading about their relationships, they seemed real and they never felt like they were forced.

I have to say another positive for me was that it took place in Australia. I rarely have seen a book that takes place here and it truly was refreshing. I found that this was maybe an unintentional thing, or I may be making a connection out of no where. But, Australia is such a beautiful and natural place. In my mind it is a place of sunshine and full of life. Britain from what I understand is a place where it can be rainy for a good amount of the place, even though it is beautiful. Having the main character move from a place that is known to be rainy and dreary to a place that I have perceived as bright and lively kinda mirrors the growth of Hazel.

What I Didn’t Like

There really wasn’t anything I can pinpoint that I did not like about this book. At times it dragged, but not for a noticeable amount of time.

Overall Thoughts

Overall this was an enjoyable read. I throughly enjoyed reading it and like I said earlier I was invented in Hazel’s story as well as her friends. If you see anything in the description I think you will enjoy this read as well. It is well written and has genuine relationships and growth.

I want to note that I received this book from Netgalley for this review. My review is honest and all thoughts are my own.

After finishing a really heart wrenching and heavy book, I needed something to lift me back up a little. Let me tell you, this little gem of a book did just that. Don't Forget Me had me grinning and shedding happy tears in no time.
Pro: I really loved the different types of loss the characters were grieving. Some were mourning the death of a loved one. Some lost someone special due to illness. While others still lost their loved one to depression, and all these losses were explored quite well.
Pro: There are so many good characters in this book. Hazel was wonderful, but so were Red, Luca, Hunter, Maddie, Claire, and Graham. I really enjoyed getting to know them all, and totally wanted to be part of this "family"
Pro: Speaking of family, I love me a family centric books, and Stevens definitely delivered one to me. There were a lot of different family dynamics probed in this story, but my favorite parts were when they were ALL together. Oh, and the parents were present too, which is always a plus.
Pro: Stevens did a good job keeping me guessing about what brought Hazel to Australia and into her father's life. All I am going to say is I may have needed a tissue or two.
Pro: I was so glad that there was beauty in the pain for these characters. Circumstances brought them together, and then they were able to move forward (slowly) and begin healing.
Pro: OMG! The letters Hazel wrote to her mom broke me in the most beautiful way. I am getting misty right now just thinking about them.
Pro: Although many of our characters were grieving, this book never got too sad. There was a lot of happiness, joy, humor, and sweet romance to keep me from becoming a puddle.
Pro: What a good ending!!!
Overall: This was a beautiful and touching story about love, family, and holding those we have lost in our memories as we move forward, which left me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Hazel reluctantly moves to Australia, to live with her father, after her mother’s health takes a heartbreaking turn. Though she longs to return home (to England), to be with her mom, she slowly begins to fall in love with the life she’s exposed to in Australia—a life that comes to include friendship (Red, Maddie, and Hunter), love (Luca), and a family (Graham, Claire, and Marc).

That’s the gist.

Much of the angst presented in this story is unnecessary.

While I understand that the young audience, for whom this book is written, such angsts would likely be blown out of proportion, I also believe when characters are presented as smart, insightful, and wise beyond their young years, then they should have a modicum of common sense.


That said, it was difficult for me to connect with the anger Luca and Red (Twin brothers) come to direct towards Hazel once she reveals her big “secret” to Luca—especially since Luca was keeping plenty of secrets himself.

Seriously, for a group of friends who have supposedly built their relationships with one another on love and trust, there’s an awful lot of lying and deceit going on.

Even more, the kid gloves with which Luca was constantly treated was annoying.

He’s sad. We get it.

It’s not all about him though, or was it supposed to be?

I guess I’m confused as to whose sadness I should’ve cared more about because it started to feel like Luca’s grief was driving everyone’s actions.

On a side note, why is Hazel so dense about a problem a simple Google search would’ve explained? It’s not like she’s four.

Good grief.

At any rate, I enjoyed the writing. The words and thoughts flowed beautifully, even if I was sometimes put off by the characters and/or their actions.

When Hazel Clarke is forced to move in with the father she has never met she is determined to make sure that it is just until she is old enough (in the eyes of the law) to leave. What Hazel doesn't expect is the friendship she develops with Red, the boy down the lane, and his twin brother Luca.
A touching novel that examines what family is and what family can become. I loved how Stevens explored what home means and how that meaning can change based on the experiences in your life. This book surprised me in the best way possible and I ended up not being able to put it down

Very well-written coming of age novel that deals with the loss of a close friend and declining health of a parent. I really enjoyed this book.

Oh wow....I enjoyed this. I loved the characters....the minor and the main characters. I loved the layered storyline. I loved the setting - Australia -- readers can leave the country and explore other countries without leaving their homes. Hazel is dealing with the fact her mom's memory isn't coming back. She's forced to move to Australia to live with the father she has never met - and finally be a teenager, something she didn't get to do back in England while taking care of her mum. This book has a running of theme of family being more than just your blood relation. It's a well written, heavier read, but well worth it.

Hazel finds herself in Australia to live with the father she has never met and she cannot wait to move back to England, with her mother. It soon becomes clear that Hazel was the sole caretaker for her mother who was dealing with an illness or some other kind of issue (we later learn it's early onset Alzheimer's).

Throughout the book, Hazel writes letters to her mother reminding her of fun times that they shared together. She also resists her father's attempts to get to know her and to help her make their house a home. She does however befriend Red, a local art student, and eventually his twin brother Luca, who has struggles of his own.

This book gave me feels. I enjoyed watching the relationship between Hazel and Luca grow as well as the relationship between Hazel and her father. It was heartbreaking to witness as he tried so hard to get Hazel to open up to him.

Watching Luca and his father reconnect was also neat to read. I think so many teenagers feel that their parents only love them when they perform or when they share common interests and to see that play out in the way it does here, when Luca can't run anymore, was so beautiful.

There were things that I felt came out of nowhere and could have used a little more explanation (or maybe I just missed it as I read through it), but a time or two I found myself confused when something would be mentioned as if we were all in on the information, but I didn't remember ever being told.