The Girl You Forgot by Giselle Green
The Girl You Forgot
Author: Giselle Green
Published: August 11, 2020
378 Pages
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: September 5- 20, 2020
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
Does the heart never really forget?
When Ava’s partner Will is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, the doctors give Will one chance to survive – an operation which means he will lose his recent memory. Ava begs him to take the chance, sure that she can cope with Will forgetting her. After all, they have something very special to live for.
But they are also keeping a heart-breaking secret, and if Will loses his memory, Ava will have to carry that secret alone.
Can they rebuild their love from scratch or will their secrets and past come between them? Will Ava really be a stranger when Will wakes up – or does the heart never really forget…
Giselle Green returns with a heart-breaking, deeply moving story of love, loss, and what it really means to be alive.
Jessica’s Review:
The Girl You Forgot is more than what the book description says: Reading it you think the characters will experience some pain after Will’s surgery that leads to a happy ever after ending, but it so much more than that. There was one line that really stuck with me at the beginning of the novel: ‘Sometimes, living, he said, ‘ is the most difficult choice any of us ever have to make.’
Both Ava and Will are our narrators, so we get both sides of their emotions and thoughts. The beginning had me close to tears thinking about my husband and I, with how much time I/or he) would have lost and where I/we were in life with how much memory Will loses. And not just the relationship with my spouse, but everything in general: friendships, losses of people and pets that you would have to be told about, and life changing events. I can’t and don’t ever want to imagine having to make this decision. In fact, I was reading it and getting emotional at the beginning and my husband asked what was wrong. My answer: “The book”. Then I proceeded to tell him what it was about. He made me stop talking about it. He didn’t want to think about it either!
Both Will and Ava are dealing with a serious secret that he won’t remember after the surgery and Ava will be dealing with it on her own. Neither one of these two people is perfect, and the secret is the opposite of what we tend to get in other novels that deal with secrets in relationships, which was a bit of a refreshing change.
Will our two main characters be able to come together despite the secret that is being kept from Will, and will he be able to fall in love with Ava again despite no memory of her? This novel gives you so many emotions and I had no idea how it was going to ultimately end, and the ending I was happy with.
This is my first novel by Giselle Green and I was given a copy by the author for a review that I was more than happy to give. I hope to read more of Green’s novels in the future.
Many thanks to the author for granting a copy for me to read and review in my own time!