I’ve been wanting to read Forget About It for ages. Absolutely ages. I absolutely loved the sound of it, but I only got around to buying the book with an Amazon voucher a few weeks ago. I don’t really know what held me back from buying it before. Probably because there were other books I really wanted to read and also because I’ve never read one of Caprice’s books so I wasn’t entirely sure she was my kind of author. I finally took the plunge though, and bought myself a cheap second hand copy and I was thrilled when it arrived. One weekend I was looking for something fairly easy to read and picked up Forget About It and I must admit I’m a bit torn.The first thing I want to say is that Forget About It is an inspired plot. Yes it’s similar to the Kinsella novel Remember Me? along with the Cecelia-Ahern-part-created TV show Samantha Who? but it’s different because Jordan chooses amnesia. It’s not forced upon her, she chooses to do it in a bid to change her life. Personally I think it’s a brilliant idea for a novel and I thought Crane executed it well for the most part. It wasn’t entirely what I expected, the faux-amnesia wasn’t what I expected it to be, and there’s an even bigger plot-changer about 100-120 pages before the end of the novel. It does become a bit of a soap opera during those last pages, with some OMG moments and moments where I wanted to strangle Jordan merely because she wasn’t aware of the real truth about all of these people around her.I must say, the book wasn’t as funny as I expected it to be either. Yes, I did laugh out loud a few times but I was expecting a laugh a minute. I follow Caprice on Twitter and she’s hilarious, so I kind of expected Forget About It to follow that. I also found some of the relationships during the novel to be lacking. The relationship between Jordan and Todd was very real to me, and Crane set it up wonderfully, with a brilliant confession-type scene early-ish on in the novel but that never panned out. At all. It was almost as if we were all set up to believe it was going to happen and I was mightily disappointed we didn’t get any sort of closure on the issue. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when an author throws us a curveball and gives us an unexpected ending, but when I get my hopes up for a couple and it doesn’t pan out, it sucks. I liked Travis as much as the next guy but I was invested in Jordan and Todd as a couple.One thing Crane really excels at is making us love her characters. I loved Jordan. I get that what she does is nuts and a bit deceitful, but I lapped it up. Most of the people she fakes to deserve it anyway – her mother and sister and Dirk her horrible boyfriend along with her work colleagues – so it made it very easy for me to accept Jordan doing that. I didn’t think it was immoral or anything, in fact I was willing her own to fool them all, that’s how horrible most of the people around Jordan were. Cat and Todd, Jordan’s best friends were amazing. I’ve already professed my love for Todd above, but Cat was amazing and I’d have loved to have seen more of her, she was just the best friend you could ever ask for. Like I’ve said, Jordan’s family weren’t exactly anything to be proud of, her sister is cruel, her mother barely cares and the only member of Jordan’s family I liked was her step-dad Walter. Dirk was just plain old horrible, the less said about him the better. As for Travis, I liked him, I really did. Just, you know, not as much as I liked Todd.The entire book was told from Jordan’s point-of-view, which works perfectly for Forget About It. For the most part I loved the book, I really did. It started well, the plot was inspiring and I loved Jordan and her friends. I loved how the faux-amnesia allowed Jordan to come into her own and be the boss for a change. But it all disintegrated with the big plot twist because although it wasn’t Jordan’s fault, I was annoyed at her for just blindly following Dirk despite the fact people told her otherwise. It made me quite angtsy in fact and I couldn’t wait for her to snap out of it, as I knew she inevitably would. I really wanted to love every page of this novel, and I think my expectations were possibly a little high, all my own fault of course. I would recommend the book because for the most part it’s good but I was also let down by parts of it. I still can’t get over the Jordan/Todd situation, it’s like it was all there, it was all set up, and then nothing. It has not, however, put me off reading the rest of Caprice Crane’s novels, I’ll definitely be picking up her other books as she definitely has huge talent as an author.
This book kept me flipping the pages non stop, a very humorous story, Jordan is someone whom I can relate to well enough. I feel we have so many things in common. Quotes I love in the book: "Know the hazards of lending and borrowing with friends.""I learned to accept my family for who they were and understand that, though they might be limited in certain areas, they all had good qualities that I could appreciate.""I felt something, like my brain was itching.""Something strange was going inside me, a mild combination of dizziness, nausea, headache and anxiety.""The character doesn't even come out until people are tested and be put in extreme situations and most people spend their lives trying to avoid those kinds of situations.""You couldn't expect your pod people family to get that though. They aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.""What's the crisis?""God is dead - Nietzsche 1883.""Nietzsche is dead - God 1900.""Cruising for Mr. Right?""I simply never found a specific club that I could bring myself to be passionate about. I was having enough trouble finding one person to be passionate about, let alone a whole club!""Victory ice cream!""In an effort to jolt myself out of my comfort zone and get a different part of my brain working.""Fast fact - $30,000 in school loans etc..""I didn't want to accept failure. Even though sometimes the strength it takes to admit failure is probably worth as much as the determination not to quit. So there you have, I was stuck fighting for a relationship with a boyfriend who, in truth be told, I'd rather forget ever existed.""Grow a conscience.""I was making memory for myself and honored to help everyone else who was there document it for their own memories.""Jordan B.C""Jordan A.D""Amazing how an eyelid extension could speak such volumes.""Just for shits and giggles.""You're nice they shit on you. You act like a complete bitch and they worship the ground you walk on.""The smile that spread across my face felt like sunshine warming me from the inside out.""Don't sit back and be a bystander of your own life.""The ball is already in motion."
What do You think about Forget About It (2007)?
I was drawn to this book by some sort of inexplicable force. I read chick lit from time to time. It tends to come in waves; sometimes I love them and sometimes I hate them. I'd never read anything by Caprice Crane before and about one sixth of the way into this one I promptly scurried over to Paper Back Swap and ordered 'Stupid and Contagious'. Basically, her voice is really enchanting. It's the perfect blend of pop culture and enough traditionalism to keep it from sounding too dated too soon. She's just really funny.The basic plot is this; Jordan Landau is having a bad life. She feels like an outsider in her family, her co-workers use her as a doormat, and her boyfriend's a narcissistic cheater. So when she gets a bump on the head during a bike accident she decides to fake amnesia. Yes, that's right, she fakes amnesia. "Forgetting" everything gives her the confidence she needs to change her life for the better.Honestly, I would have preferred it if the synopsis ended there. The fake amnesia was interesting to me because I've read amnesia chick lit books before. Notably Sophie Kinsella's 'Remember Me?' which was probably her best effort to date. But there's more to the plot of 'Forget About It'. Just when Jordan thinks it may be about time to "get her memory back" she gets in yet another accident and gets amnesia for real. Yes, that's right, she gets it for real. Luckily the characters were still enchanting enough to sustain the impossibility of that little nugget. I had a really good time reading this book, which is pretty much the only thing you can ask for when it comes to chick lit. And this is pure 100% chick lit fluff. I'll say, I enjoyed the first half of this book much more than the second and the ultimate romance was relatively tepid, in my opinion, but mostly because I preferred another option for her. But the voice and characters were enough to sustain this book in general.
—Lindsay Heller
Disappointing. I had high hopes for this premise (because how fun does a case of fake amnesia sound?) but the story was just...flat. It's written very well, and Caprice Crane's humor is sharp and intelligent, so it's worth a read solely for that, but plot and character wise, this novel left much to be desired.I can get down with the fake amnesia, but the second thump on the head resulting in REAL amnesia? Can you say plot device? And the fact that Crane used this real amnesia as an excuse to ba
—Meagan
Life isn't going too well for Jordan Landau. Her family is insufferable and manipulative, her boyfriend is a womanizing dud, and her boss takes credit for all of her great ideas. Basically, Jordan is a doormat. So when she gets a bump on the noggin in a bicycle accident and wakes up in the hospital, she decides it's the perfect time to start her life over - by faking amnesia. But Jordan's "Do Over" doesn't exactly go as she'd hoped. And just as her new life starts going sour, too, Karma bites ba
—Jen B
