This story got off to a good start. Intriguing and full of suspense and promise. But then I didn't feel the characters or the surprising twist and it wasn't the read I expected it to be. I ended up liking the story, but not loving it.

So thrilled to have this master Cincinnati novelist’s tour de force to review! It’s a very modern story line, starting with a video chat session between friends Molly and Liza. When Molly briefly breaks away to check on her crying child, Liza sees a masked man break into the just vacated room and turn off the computer. What transpires next keeps you glued ‘til the very last page in this finely layered psychological study of friendship and marriage. 5/5

Pub Date 05 Feb 2019.

Thanks to the author, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

#ForgetYouKnowMe #NetGalley

A very enjoyable read that really kept me coming back to it. I had to figure out who did what and I was pleasantly surprised by how everything turned out. Not only was this a bit suspenseful, but it was also just a great read about women friends who both feel as if their once very strong friendship has gone off course. A terrific beach read or anytime read. Strongly recommend.

I really enjoyed this book! So far, I have read and liked all the books by this author. Although this book was not as good as her first two books, I will continue reading her new work in the future.

In a literary world full of boiler-plate stories, this genre-bending story is a stimulating original. It is part thriller, part chick-lit, and part romance, all seamlessly combined to create a very real-world feel that is so easy to get lost in.



I am not an enthusiastic fan of chick lit, to be honest. Sometimes I get so engrossed in a story that I can't put it down, but many times I find a book to be so pedestrian, it just leaves me feeling sad. When I read the description for this book, I was hopeful but also wary. It sounds so good, with all the ingredients for an incredible read. I was prepared for it to be a dud, though, just in case.



I could not have been more happily surprised by this book. It is exquisite. Once I started reading, I didn't want to put it down (resulting in a very late night for me, but I found I did not care in the slightest).



The two leading ladies here are beautifully written. Liza is a fiercely independent, driven woman. She stands strong on her own. So much so that she unintentionally drifts away from her closest friend. She's moved far from her home to start over in the big city, hoping to make all her dreams come true. Instead, she winds up kind of sad, and clinging a little too much to her big city best friend - a gentleman who just so happens to love her, and is working out if his life partner will end up being a man or a woman. In an attempt to reconnect with her home town best friend, Molly, Liza settles in one night for a video chat to catch up. But that night goes horribly wrong, and Liza is left reeling in the aftermath.



Molly never meant to let her friendship with Liza slip to the back burner, and then off the stove altogether. It just kind of happened gradually, in increments so small, she didn't immediately recognize what was happening. And by the time she did notice, she was overwhelmed with life and didn't know how to fix it.



To a certain extent, Molly envies Liza. That free spirit friend who is apparently tied to nothing and no one, while Molly feels every single one of her mortal binds with excruciating clarity. She is a wife, with expectations from her husband to try and fulfill on a daily basis. She is a mother, and god knows those kids depend on her for absolutely everything. She is in pain all the time, and becoming increasingly desperate to find something that gives her relief.



It's hard to juggle everything all the time, and so it's no surprise when things slip through the cracks. But in Molly's world, everything is big, so anything that slips has the potential to be catastrophic. But who can she turn to?



She can't confide in her husband. Her medical treatments are not something that he has been supportive of or even interested in talking about in a long time, so the astronomical debt she's accrued in secret would certainly not be something he'd understand. And the shady character who helped get her in so much debt represents a company that doesn't exactly seem to ooze sympathy.



Her best friend, Liza, couldn't possibly get what she's going through, either. She isn't married, doesn't have kids, isn't in pain. Never mind that she's going through a terrible ordeal herself. It's fresh and frightening, but not years-long and debilitating like Molly's. The only thing Liza can do is inspire Molly to be a bit more fierce and independent herself. Maybe that way, she can handle the sea she is currently drowning in.



This was such a riveting read. I liked Liza from the very beginning. She's a shining example of how sometimes we shoot for the stars and it doesn't quite work out the way we planned, and it can be hard to try and go back to Square One. She's a great friend, incredibly loyal, and very brave and loving. She's the kind of person I would love to be friends with, and the kind of character I use to describe my very best friends in real life.



Now, Molly is honestly not a very sympathetic character in the beginning. She is snotty, elitist, rude. She comes across as so holier-than-thou, which is not fun to experience either in person or in literature. She's just uncomfortable all around - but I found that that lent so much to her character. After a while, I started to really understand how uncomfortable she is herself. How much her pain is clouding her judgment and leading to mistakes that rack up in terrifying ways. Until they're threatening her entire life - including her children. A person can only bear so much before they start to crumble. Suddenly, I found myself empathizing with Molly a great deal. By the end of the story, I was very emotionally invested in what happened to her and her family.



From start to finish, this was a very, very good read. The details are finely nuanced and purposeful, and the ending is not a "wrap it up nicely like a gift, even though it doesn't necessarily make the story better." It surprised me in the best possible way! At absolutely no point did Strawser take the easy way out with her writing, and I just love that. I can't wait to read her other works!

This was quite the domestic thriller! Very engaging, fast-paced and difficult to stop reading! I was very surprised by a few of the twists and turns!

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me.. I read the authors previous book and it was ok. I was hoping that this would be a better book but i couldn't get to the story by 20% of the book.

Thanks to netgalley for an advanced reader copy. I felt like this book was a good blend of women’s contemporary fiction laced with a thriller feel. I felt emotionally drained after reading about these friends complex relationship. This had great plot twists to keep me turning the page. I will continue to read books by this author.

St. Martin's Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Forget You Know Me. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Forget You Know Me is the story of broken friendships, meant to last the test of time, but are tested by circumstances. Molly and Liza are best friends, separated by distance and increasingly losing touch. When a rare video chat goes horribly wrong, leading Liza to drive through the night to her friend's side, will the ensuing lackluster response on Molly's part lead to their demise?

I found it hard to connect to the characters, especially Molly. I did not feel an emotional bond between Molly and Liza, or between Molly and Daniel. The result is that I did not feel fully invested in the outcome of the story, giving me only an average impression of the novel as a whole. As the story flits from plot point to plot point, I got the feeling that the progression of the novel could abruptly halt and it really would not matter. Overall, the characters seem to only exist to move the plot along, as though the author had an agenda to follow. For these reasons, I would be hesitant to recommend Forget You Know Me to other readers.

I was a little disappointed by this book. Jessica Strawser's first novel Not That I Could Tell, I absolutely loved and found myself having a hard time putting it down but for some reason this book did not do that for me.

The description on the back of this book had me clawing to pick it up but once I started I was a little disappointed. The book moved very slow after the initial shocking event and never seemed to pick up. To me it focused more on the lives of Liza and Molly and less on the shocking event. I felt that some of this could have been taken out.

This is definitely a slow burn that does not have many twists or turns or shocking factors but on the whole it kept my attention as I did want to know how it ended.

I flew through this book in a few nights and can absolutely say I had NO idea what was coming at the end. I think I said that about the author’s last novel, too - so well done, Jessica for keeping me on my toes! It’s domestic suspense that’s not scary, but has enough tension and twists to keep you wondering what’s going on.

<I>Forget You Know Me</I> starts off with a skype call gone horribly wrong. This makes it sound like your in for a treat of a thriller, but it's very far from that. Instead you get deeply involved in the drama of two best friends - one being a single career-minded woman still trying to find herself and her one true love and the other being a mom of two with chronic pain and a crumbling marriage.

Jessica Strawser is very talented. Her writing skills are top notch when it comes to intertwining and transitioning between characters. However, these storylines were not my favorite. I could not connect with or identify with any character. They all kept secrets and they all continuously made bad decisions. I didn't have any sympathy for them. But the writing kept me going. Strawser is a great story teller, the content just left little to be desired.

I started reading this but found it boring and not very well written. I simply could not get into it so will not be writing a review.

I will not be posting a review on goodreads because I was unable to enjoy this book and do not feel comfortable leaving a negative review.

This story revolves around two women, who have been friends since college. How their relationship has drifted apart and changed through the years. Then there is the one significant incident, that threatens to end the friendship. The reactions between all the parties involved is what makes this book so interesting to read.

This is my second book by this author and my first with a 5-star rating. I really enjoyed the twists and turns and found the characters easy to relate to. I like the romance and real life problems thrown in on the backdrop of a thriller.

The synopsis of Forget You Know Me made me think it was going to be, at the very least, a psychological thriller. It wasnt really even very suspenseful once the opening premise was resolved. What was really at the center of the book is what occurs when friends grow apart, and also when marriages fail. Unfortunately the character portraits of the adults in this book are a little two dimensional for my taste. That made it hard for me to care about the outcome of their individual story arcs. I became invested in the children's stories, as they seemed to be the most layered characters. Forget You Know Me just wasnt for me.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

This was twisty and emotional story. A video call unlocks a chain of events that changes both characters forever. Overall fun to read, not the best thing I've read lately but enjoyable.

I stopped about 50% through this one because the only feels I had about the book were MEH type feels. I wanted mystery and suspense and drama... Not so much unlikeable characters, disjointed POV storytelling, and a host of "are you really that stupid" life choices on everyone's part. I just couldn't go on.

I wanted to like this book, and really enjoyed the beginning. The premise is interesting- two old friends get together one night over video chat in order to reconnect, but when one woman goes upstairs to check on the kids, the other friend sees a masked man enter the home. Panicked, she tries to call her friend over and over and calls the police. After not getting a call back, she travels back to Cincinatti to see if everything is okay.

This is where I felt the book became so-so. I think I was expecting more of a thriller than a dramatic portrayal of a strained marriage and faded friendship. The themes were interesting and the writing was good, but I found myself having to force finish this one.

2.5 stars out of 5 for Forget You Know Me,