Forget Me Not

This book made me feel nostalgic in the way it brought me back to my first crush on a girl. I loved how realistic and relatable it was. I could feel the secondhand embarrassment when it came to doing mortifyingly embarrassing things in front of your crush that made you want to disappear on the spot.

“Love... it's the scariest thing in the world. And loving someone, especially someone you think you shouldn't, is even scarier. But do you know what's worse? Taking away someone's privilege to know that they were loved. That in this messy world, they were cared about endlessly by a loving heart. It's a privilege, to get to love someone. It's an even bigger one to be loved.”

Having a crush on someone who you don't believe you have a chance with sucks. Having a crush on someone you believe you shouldn't have a crush on in the first place is even worse. This is something so many people can relate to.

My only real criticism is that I wanted it to be longer. This was such a cute story and I would definitely revisit it in the future.

Thank you to BookSirens and Isabel Hansen for this Arc!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

i received an ARC in exchange of an honest review, all the opinions are mine.

being in love with your best friend's sister - who's off limits and isn't even interested in you that way (or so you thought) - is hard enough as it is, but throw in the fact that you have to spend an entire weekend with her because you got locked out of your own house and you've got aurora's definition of a disaster.
overall this was an entertaining and very quick read, which isn't that bad, in and of itself, but it does, however, mean i didn't get to connect with the characters that well so some things fell a little bit flat for me. i am well aware that this is a novella, so things are supposed to be fast paced but they were maybe a bit too fast paced for me to get attached to anything - the plot, the characters, the setting, etc.
one thing that didn't fall that flat for me was the romance, which is why i decided to be less harsh about the story itself than i orginally wanted to since the romance was the one thing i was there for. it was cute, i felt the chemistry the main characters and their moments were sweet and managed to get a smile or a chuckle out of me at times. i even highlighted some paragraphs and bookmarked some pages so at least it left me with that. i also liked that we got glimpses of their past and that helped consolidate their relationship one way or another in my eyes, but it still left me wanting more.
i wish the characters on their own got a bit more developement because they felt a bit 2D sometimes, but i understand that the author couldn't get too deep into it given the length of the novella. i would, however, read a full novel about the characters with the same plot but developed because the premise was really good and it has a lot of potential.
i think the story lacked some depth when it comes to aurora's friendship with hope which is why i couldn't really understand why aurora thought it would the end of the world if hope found out she liked her sister. the only time we got somewhat of a look into their bond was towards the end, but when it comes to understanding their dynamic in relation to lyla it was a bit too late for me, although on its own that scene is one of my favorites. it was really hard for me to care about their friendship getting ruined when i didn't see said friendship on paper, i was only told about it.
the angst almost got me, but not quite and, as a huge angst with a happy ending lover, it was kind of disappointing. i knew i was supposed to feel it and i wasn't totally indifferent, but at the same time it didn't really affect me the way it was supposed to because i didn't care about the characters enough at the time. call it schrodinger's angst, if you will.
the end was cute, it wrapped everything out really nicely and i was content with the way everything turned out. it's promising without being too idealistic and it definitely left me feeling pretty good about the story. it wasn't a masterpiece or something that i will think about for a long time, but that's okay because not every read has to be this groundbreaking piece that has you questioning your life. i'm glad i could enjoy it for what it was.
as for the author, as a side note, the premises of her novels are so good sometimes i wish we could get full on novels instead of novellas just so i can properly get to enjoy them and their whole potential.