Marissa Rogers never wanted to be an alpha; beta suited her just fine. Taking charge without taking credit had always paid off: vaulting her to senior editor at a glossy magazine; keeping the peace with her critical, weight-obsessed mother; and enjoying the benefits of being best friends with gorgeous, charismatic, absolutely alpha Julia Ferrar.

And then Julia gets hit by a cab. She survives with minor obvious injuries, but brain damage steals her memory and alters her personality, possibly forever. Suddenly, Marissa is thrown into the role of alpha friend. As Julia struggles to regain her memory- dredging up issues Marissa would rather forget, including the fact that Julia asked her to abandon the love of her life ten years ago- Marissa’s own equilibrium is shaken.

With the help of a dozen girls, she reluctantly agrees to coach in an after-school running program. There, Marissa uncovers her inner confidence and finds the courage to reexamine her past and take control of her future.

The Art of Forgetting is a story about the power of friendship, the memories and myths that hold us back, and the delicate balance between forgiving and forgetting.

For Marissa friendship with Julia is more than a simple set of gestures and a random spattering of phone calls, it’s a way of life. Since meeting in their youth Marissa has been under Julia’s safe, but often demanding, shelter. Julia’s charm and magnetism has drawn numerous people to her, but none so much as Marissa. When Julia is dramatically changed after a car accident leaving her brain damaged and her personality & memories forever altered Marissa is left wondering who she is without her ever-present friend. With more questions than answers Marissa is left questioning Julia’s new found interest in the past and what it may potentially mean not only to Julia, but personally as well.

When I was initially given the opportunity to review The Art of Forgetting I was instantly drawn to it, but it was Leah’s review a few weeks ago that clenched my need to read this wonderful book about friendship. What Camille Noe Pagan explores is more than a simple story about friends; it’s a story about making hard choices, living life to the fullest and living a life in the present full of what matters most, love. Reading The Art of Forgetting comes at a oddly precarious point in my life when I’m facing some relatively frightening health issues of my own and I’m positive this has also affected my feelings regarding the book. It’s one of the most beautifully empowering books I’ve read in quite a long time and I’m not sure I’m entirely capable of communicating it’s full affect, but I’ll definitely attempt to.

Marissa is a girl I think many readers will relate to; confident, generally successful, in a happy relationship with a handful of close friends and relatively happy with how her life is playing out. It often takes an even mildly traumatic experience to jog our determination to plug away at the seeming monotony of life. In her case it’s the injury to her life-long friend Julia and her subsequent dramatically altered state. Julia suddenly decides it’s time to right so many wrongs, the first of which is to reunite Marissa with an old ex-boyfriend she forced Marissa to leave. What happens from this point forward has Marissa questioning everything from her current happy relationship to her past choices and more. How many of us have questioned the choices we’ve made and whether we are where we should be? Hopefully, the majority of us have even for just a moment or two. It’s these moments in life when we can decide what’s important and in which direction we wish to continue. It can be empowering or crippling depending on how we handle the choices presented.

Aside from the more personal aspects of the book that touched me The Art of Forgetting was also a wonderful novel on many other levels. Not only did Marissa need to work through her feelings on the relationship she would now have with her best friend, but also about herself. Part of this was impacted by her association with a group of tween girls she coached once a week in an attempt to prepare them for a 5k run and a life filled with happiness. I loved this portion of the book and how it illustrates the importance of volunteering & sharing our life experience with those around us. In the end it almost always benefits the giver more so than the receiver and this is absolutely the case (at least immediately) with Marissa. I also thoroughly loved Marissa’s relationship with Dave and the back-story between her ex-boyfriend Nathan. I won’t ruin the end, but I’ll just say I was incredibly overjoyed with her choice.

Camille Noe Pagan’s debut novel The Art of Forgetting is one of my favorite reads this year. Her ability to communicate so many layers of feeling in one novel is incredible. The Art of Forgetting is a book that is absolutely about friendship, but also and maybe more importantly it’s about living a life that leaves us and those around us happy. It’s about being compassionate, but remembering to take charge of your life and becoming the person you’d love to see when you look in the mirror. Each of the characters in The Art of Forgetting have left their mark on me and I’ll be forever changed for having read it. An absolute must read that will have you savoring the experiences in your own life that much more.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Penguin, for providing this book for review via NetGalley!

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