Forget Me Nat

Natalie has a crush on this boy Derek, and she has it bad. It’s all she can think about. She obsesses over Derek so much she’s zoning out in class and ignoring her friends. Derek responds with casual pleasantness to her friendly gestures, but when he doesn’t pick up on her hints to attend the school dance together, she asks him outright- and finds out that he only likes her as a friend. She’s -to put it mildly- heartbroken. Most of the story is actually about how she gets over this hurt- both the unhealthy methods: blaming herself, lashing out at friends, rehashing things she should have said differently- and the more constructive: snuggling with her pets, helping friends with a project, doing fun physical activities outside, and reminding herself of her good qualities. She eventually makes amends with her friends, and starts looking forward to other things. I thought this book had a great message, especially in showing the poor choices and better ones, for how to respond to emotional hurt like this- in a very straightforward story.

It had some other minor plots too- she deals with getting new braces, and there’s a whole thing about school elections for a class president. And I found the little asides of her pet cat and dog talking to each other, reflecting her emotions in their own way (the dog having an obsessive relationship with his tennis ball) so cute. What I really didn’t like- in fact it felt like a slap in the face- was this detail in an illustration:

That’s NOT A THING. It’s like saying ‘here, have a non-citrus orange’! Is the author making fun of gluten-free foods, or just super ignorant of what that means. As someone well into year three of following a gluten-free diet (and only because it made such a huge difference for my health) I found that detail offensive. Not a single person in all the reviews I looked at online mention this, so maybe it’s just me (although someone else had issues with the portrayal of a kid who barks at people, because they knew someone with Tourette’s who actually does that).

Also, there were some odd scenes where Natalie talks to a lady in a mirror- her conscience? -that isn’t explained at all. And a bunch of side characters that we aren’t introduced to, the story just seems to assume you already know them and what they’re like and their relationship with Nat. I suppose it was part of the first book- I didn’t realize before that this was part of a series.

Borrowed from the public library. Completed on 4/24/24.