Author info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Pages: 320
Format: Egalley
Source: Publisher provided for review through Netgalley
Buy the book: Barnes & Noble | Amazon | The Book Depository
For fans of THE FUTURE OF US comes an engrossing story of two teens, whose love for each other is tested by time and fate.I couldn't begin to figure out what I'd compare I Remember You to--since we seem to love labeling books with X meets Y. Yes, The Future of Us, as the blurb says, ties in nicely with the knowledge of the future, but I still think I Remember You is a very different animal. It's so simple, yet so complicated, and sheer curiosity drives you forward in the book, desperate to come to the end.
Lucas and Juliet couldn’t be more different from each other. But from the moment Lucas sees Juliet, he swears he remembers their first kiss. Their first dance. Their first fight. He even knows what’s going to happen between them—not because he can predict the future, but because he claims to have already lived it.
Juliet doesn’t know whether to be afraid for herself or for Lucas. As Lucas’s memories occur more frequently, they also grow more ominous. All Juliet wants is to keep Lucas safe with her. But how do you hold on to someone you love in the present when they’ve begun slipping away from you in the future?
And here's the thing: We know something bad has happened, and soon. Juliet is remembering these instances, telling them back with hints here and there. It's so hard to appreciate the love story being told because all you want to do is fly through the pages and get to the end, to find out just what's up with Lucas. But, to do so would be missing so much. Yes, the mystery of Lucas' dreams and knowledge of the future is the driving factor of the book, but Juliet and Lucas' relationship is the heart. It's a first love, yet it's so strong and genuine that you can't help but think it's the real deal. It makes for a slow book plot-wise, but one that was still a pleasure to read.
I Remember You is both a treat to read in its sweetness and akin to a thriller in how quickly I wanted to get through it, desperate for answers. With an ending unlike so much of YA, it's not one I'll easily forget.
About the author:
I was born in Princeton, NJ in 1971 and lived there until I was twelve, when we moved with my mom moved to West Hartford, CT.
My dad and mom had been divorced when I was two, and my dad lived in Williamstown, MA. I spent summers and school vacations with him.
I went to college in New York, at Barnard, and stayed in New York after I graduated. I worked as a newspaper reporter for three months, as a salesperson for a multimedia publisher for three years, and as a market researcher, and finally a copywriter.
I’m married and have two awesome kids ages two and five. I lived in Manhattan for sixteen years, but now am in Brooklyn, living downstairs from my sister and her family. I have two dogs named Oscar and Oprah. My favorite food is pizza and, strangely, in my thirties, I’ve developed a great love for playing catch. Slipping is my first book.
Now I think back to seeing Lucas with the lawn mower--there was actually a whole crew of landscapers doing the bushes and the edging, laying mulch--and I wish I'd never gone inside. I wish I could freeze time, go back and take a picture, write it all down, the way I'm trying to do now. Had he shaved, or was the line of blond stubble he got at the end of the day already there? Had he bunched up the gray T-shirt he wasn't wearing and tucked it into the back of his shorts? I remember that his chest and back were shining, but like I said, I was trying not to notice. They didn't belong to me then. They would.
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"What do you want from me?" I said. "I don't know. But I want something."
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Are the memories we recall governed by the feelings attached to them? Is that why they stay with us? Or do we remember only what we remind ourselves of over and again as they years go by? How is it possible that some memories you'd like to hold on to slip away and others--mundane and sad alike, the memories you'd just as soon forget--stay, bubbling to the surface of your brain for no reason at all?
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His voice broke. "I would give anything. To keep this. To keep the dream."
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I still felt dizzy, like my brain no longer trusted the orientation of the floor, like I was standing on a wildly rocking boat. But it didn't matter. I didn't have to feel confident in the ground beneath my feat, because I was about to fly.
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