Happy Monday and welcome to my stop on the FORGET THIS EVER HAPPENED blog tour! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Cassandra Rose Clarke to share with you, AND my review of the book! This book is truly amazing and I’m so so excited to for you to find out more about it, PLUS enter for a chance to win a print copy!
I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Forget This Ever Happened by Cassandra Rose Clarke Published on October 6, 2020 by Holiday House
Genres: Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller, YA, Queer
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss
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Sometimes there's a town called Indianola.
And sometimes there isn't.
Summer, 1993. Claire has been dumped in rural Indianola, Texas, to spend her whole vacation taking care of mean, sickly Grammy. There's nothing too remarkable about Indianola: it's run-down, shabby, and stifling hot, a pin-dot on the Gulf Coast.
Well, there is one remarkable thing, she discovers. Something otherworldly.
But if you leave Indianola, you forget about it... and if you stay, you have to live with it every day.
Because there's a confluence of energies at Indianola, a fissure in time and space, a gap in reality. Nothing is as it seems. And unless Claire can figure out this town--the talkative lizards under the pecan trees; the honey-sweet but terrifying girl next door; the cute daughter of a powerful family, who would answer Claire's questions if she had any answers; the pervasive sense of history coming unspooled, like a video tape--she might never leave.
Sometimes I don’t have a whole lot to say about books, so I’ve created Rapid Fire Reviews as a quick and fun way to get my opinion out without repeating myself and boring you! Here we go!
DID I LIKE IT?
ahhh!!! I loved it! This book is weird in all the best ways, and I LOVED IT!!!
FAVORITE CHARACTER?
I think I liked Claire and Julie equally!
WILL I RE-READ IT?
Definitely, especially since I just (like as I’m writing this) realized what the tagline means.
“Sometimes there’s a town called Indianola. And sometimes there isn’t.”
THREE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE BOOK
weird, monsters, memory
QUICK THOUGHTS
You know when a book lives up to its hype and it’s just SO GOOD? That’s what this book was for me! I absolutely LOVED IT and I already can’t wait to go back and reread it now that I know what’s going on!
LOOK AT THAT COVER!!! IT’S SO PINK AND 90’S AND BEAUTIFUL AND I LOVE IT!!!! 10/10 stars!!!
- The Love That Split The World by Emily Henry
- This Is Not The Jess Show by Anna Carey
- The Mall by Megan McCafferty
What would you do if you spent the day with Claire? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?
Since Claire’s from Houston, where I live, I could see the two of us heading down to the museum district and hanging out at the art museum and the science museum. Then we’d probably grab a couple of coffees from one of the cool coffee shops in the area and chat about books, music, and movies.
If Claire were to hang out with characters from other YA books, who would they be and why?
Claire would one hundred percent have a crush on Malachiasz from Emily Duncan’s Something Dark and Holy Series, although I’m not sure how much she would actually hang out with him (probably just admire him from afar). She would also fit in well with the crowd from Perks of Being a Wallflower.
What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?
Originally, the book was set in 1986, since it’s inspired by a real-life hurricane that happened in 1886, and I wanted to set it a hundred years later. I did quite a bit of ‘80s research that wound up not being used when my editor suggested moving the setting to the early ‘90s. That said, I LOVE that the book is set in the ‘90s, so I really don’t mind throwing that research out.
What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Forget This Ever Happened?
I love the scene where Claire first encounters the monster in her grandmother’s backyard. It’s such a weird, creepy scene, and it was so much fun to write.
Were there alternate endings you considered, or did you always know where the story was headed?
Cassandra Rose Clarke’s work has placed in the Rhysling Awards and been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Pushcart Prize, and YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults. She grew up in south Texas and currently lives in Houston, where she writes and serves as the associate director for Writespace, a literary arts nonprofit. She holds an M.A. in creative writing from The University of Texas at Austin, and in 2010 she attended the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in Seattle. Her latest novel is Halo: Battle Born, out now from Scholastic.
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Enter here for a chance to win a print copy of FORGET THIS EVER HAPPENED by Cassandra Rose Clarke!
What books have you read that lived up to their hype? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
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