Mhairi McFarlane
September 10, 2019
William Morrow Paperbacks
Blurb:
You always remember your first love… don’t you?
If there’s anything worse than being fired from the lousiest restaurant in town, it’s coming home early to find your boyfriend in bed with someone else. Reeling from the humiliation of a double dumping in one day, Georgina takes the next job that comes her way—bartender in a newly opened pub. There’s only one problem: it’s run by the guy she fell in love with years ago. And—make that two problems—he doesn’t remember her. At all. But she has fabulous friends and her signature hot pink fur coat… what more could a girl really need?
Lucas McCarthy has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but he’s also turned into an actual grown-up, with a thriving business and a dog along the way. Crossing paths with him again throws Georgina’s rocky present into sharp relief—and brings a secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows what happened twelve years ago, and why she’s allowed the memories to chase her ever since. But maybe it’s not too late for the truth… or a second chance with the one that got away?
Since I started as a book blogger in 2016, I have read over 500 books. I am not looking for accolades–rather that is my extremely feeble excuse for not recognizing Mhairi McFarlane’s name as I began reading Don’t You Forget About Me. In 2016, one of the best books I read that year was Who’s That Girl. Mind you, I had been blogging for all of two months and maybe three people read that review (or “liked” it; maybe no one read it).
I started reading Don’t You Forget About Me yesterday evening and literally did not want to put it down. I read until far too late in the evening and then first thing this morning.
Don’t You Forget About Me is about Georgina (George or Gina, depending on who you are) who fell in love at 18 with an Irish boy named Lucas. What they had was real and sweet and eye-opening, until naive Georgina, who was always trying to please people, did the wrong thing. Twelve years later Georgina is not living the life she was meant to live, she’s positive. And then Lucas comes back into her life, but he doesn’t seem to recognize her. Was she really that forgettable?
Like Who’s That Girl before it, Don’t You Forget About Me stirred all of the emotions. I was laughing one moment and crying the next–seriously. McFarlane writes funny but also smart. At one point I was reading and thought: I could imagine Phoebe Waller-Bridge having a hand in this. It’s a privilege to read a smart, funny romance/chick lit that isn’t afraid to touch on other issues like men bullying women or taking advantage of women. But it also shows the women ultimately standing up for themselves.
The romance between Georgina and Lucas is sweet and Lucas’ speech at the end, which amounts to a grand gesture, is sigh-worthy.
Don’t You Forget About Me heads my list as the best romantic comedy of the year.
Will you like it? Maybe if you like second chance romances, snarky humor, intelligent writing, and laugh-out-loud scenes.
Now, I’m going to go do what I said I’d do three years ago: find everything that McFarlane has written so far and read it!
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating:
5 out of 5 butterflies
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