Forget-Her-Nots

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: Cute YA book filled with magic, new love, and a fun story.

Opening Sentence: Lily reread the letter to her daughter and signed her name at the bottom.

The Review:

14 year old Laurel has just started her freshman year at a new boarding school. Her mother passed away a few years ago and she couldn’t stand living with her dad since he started dating again. She begged him to let her go to the school her mother attended as a young girl. It is an all girl school, and most of the students have known each other since kindergarten. Being the new girl, Laurel would love to fit in but that’s easier said than done.

For one of her first assignments she has to give an English presentation and she show more chooses to do it on the language of flowers. Every flower has a meaning and if you put them together properly it can relay a special message. Laurel and her mother have always had a special love for flowers, and she found a book in the school library about their language. As Laurel learns more about the flower language she starts to realize that flowers have a magical power that she can control. Certain flowers enhance love; others help your memories and so on. Laurel starts to experiment and soon others start to notice and ask for her help. At first the attention is nice and she really is able to help some people, but soon she realizes that there are some things that should be left alone.

Laurel is a sweet girl, but she was pretty naive at times. She is young and has a lot to learn about life and love. She was a little too nice at times and didn’t stick up for herself very well, which was a little frustrating. She tried to be a good friend and she really tried to help others as much as she could. Some of the time her efforts were successful and other times they were hurtful. But she learns and grows from her mistakes which made her a very likable heroine. Overall, I thought that she had a good voice and I really ended up liking her even with her flaws.

This was a really cute and fast read for me. The characters were fun and easy to connect with. I loved learning all the different things that flowers can represent; it was an interesting addition to the story. The plot wasn’t anything unique, but it was still fun. The romance was sweet and honest. There were a few moments that dragged, but for the most part the pacing was good. Overall, this was a good read for me. I would recommend it to anyone that likes a clean coming of age story with magic and cute characters.

Notable Scene:

Now! She thought. Her right hand seemed to lift on its own and reach toward the bouquet. “Bright cut flowers,” she whispered, “leaves of green, bring about what I have seen.” What the last word left her tongue, her whole body tingled and hummed, as if a note was reverberating deeply inside her. She closed her eyes and pictured the bow-tie man walking hand in hand with Miss Spenser … him taking her in his arms. That was what she wanted to see.

When Laurel’s eyes opened, the air around the vase seemed to shimmer-like heat rising-with the sudden explosion of fragrance. Someone sneezed twice, and the professor slowly straightened and blinked at the flowers.

At the far end of the table a tall woman with olive-toned skin stood up and looked around urgently. She lifted her nose and then turned toward Laurel, who dropped her hand. The woman’s eyes met hers in a question, but Laurel took a step backward.

FTC Advisory: Greenwillow/Harper Collins provided me with a copy of Forget-Her-Nots. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. show less

Cute idea somewhat lacking in the execution. I really really liked the concept of Flower-speaking and using that as a backdrop for a coming of age story. Overall, I liked the plot but the characterizations were very weak (and in some cases, utterly incomprehensible to me) and stereotypical (e.g., mean girl, jock, nerdy girl, etc.). What could have been a fantastic and deep story ended up shallow and fluffy.

Laurel Whelan is not expecting anything special to happen when she presents to her English class on the language of flowers. Her mother had loved flowers, and all the women in their family are given floral names. But when Laurel demonstrates how to make a tussie-mussie (a bouquet of symbolic flowers), she feels power rushing through her. She gives the bouquet to her teacher, and at lunch she notices that the long-time spinster is flirting with a visiting professor. Did Laurel make that happen? And can she do it again?

Forget-Her-Nots is a lovely story. Laurel is grieving following the death of her mother, and though she wanted to go to boarding school since her father is never home, she struggles to make friends once there. When she show more discovers her affinity for working with flowers, it gives her a purpose and a means of connecting with her fellow students. But as with any gift there is a price, and Laurel makes mistakes along the way to understanding that gift.

I especially liked that the characters in this book are complicated. Her new friends want to support her, but they don't know how and so they sometimes do it wrong. The adults are also imperfect, and both Laurel's father and her grandmother have let her down following her mother's death. Laurel is herself flawed, especially when she starts using flowers to manipulate her own emotions.

One thing that sets this book apart from many current titles is that it isn't edgy. There are some older students who making some bad choices, but Laurel herself is still pretty innocent, as many 9th graders are. While that puts this book at the younger end of the YA spectrum, it's still complicated enough for older students to enjoy. I liked this book a lot; it's a refreshing story that I know my students will enjoy. show less

On Laurel’s fourteenth birthday, she receives a seemingly impossible letter from her mother…because her mother is dead. Not long after, Laurel becomes interested in the “language” of flowers—in the way that different flowers can send different messages. To her shock, she discovers that her flowers are actually effective in bringing about what she wants them to, and soon Laurel has her hands full juggling bouquet requests from classmates who may or may not be her friends, working out her feelings for a boy, and unraveling the Flowerspeaker secret that generations of women in her family have possessed.

Amy Brecount White’s debut novel is a surprisingly charming magical realism middle-grade novel that sweetly combines magic, show more romance, and teen drama into something that will be well enjoyed by young girls who enjoy a combination of Harry Potter and Twilight.

Despite the occasionally annoying teen speak (draaawwwn out syllables, luv instead of “love,” lots of seemingly life-or-death ultimatums), FORGET-HER-NOTS is actually very well written for its intended audience. Right from the start, White draws us in with her thorough and fascinating knowledge about the language of flowers. Laurel, despite being a typically lonely and insecure teenage girl, never drops into the land of annoying protagonists. She is sweet and vulnerable, yet determined to master her gift and to help everyone out.

FORGET-HER-NOTS focuses mostly on Laurel’s struggles to establish lasting relationships with the people around her, and it is well done. The girls whom Laurel befriends have their good and bad points; the tension between Laurel and her politician widower father are believable, despite the fact that Laurel believes their fights come about due to the influence of the flowers. I appreciated that the magical elements of this novel were never used to excuse the characters’ up-and-down behaviors—for, indeed, they were realistic, and readers will be able to relate to Laurel’s mixed feelings about the people around her.

Despite a slow plot and occasional underdeveloped supporting characters, FORGET-HER-NOTS will be a treat especially for middle school girls who will find White’s narration relatable and the magical realism elements irresistible. show less

As the book opens, Laurel is mourning the loss of her mother to cancer. She’s separated herself from her friends, first emotionally and now physically by enrolling at Avondale, and making new friends hasn’t been easy. Though one girl does become a good friend fairly early in the book, she is still very closed off to those around her. This is understandable, but it also made it difficult to feel connected to Laurel.
Other than this newfound ability to seemingly influence those around her using flowers, Laurel has a lot of problems in her life. She thinks her dad is moving on too quickly, bringing home an assortment of women now that she’s at boarding school and out of the way. There’s a guy at Willowlawn, the nearby boys school, show more that she likes but can’t seem to get it together enough to say or do the right thing when he’s around. And then there’s the mean girl who is jealous of the fact that Laurel made the soccer team and she didn’t, that the boy she likes actually talks to Laurel instead of her, that her friend becomes friends with her – basically anything and everything about Laurel.
Even though Laurel wasn’t the most relatable protagonist, I found myself invested in where her story was going. There’s a lot going on in this book, since Laurel has so many things that she’s working through in her life, so it takes a while to bring that all together into a cohesive story, but it is done well. I found the middle to be lagging a bit; there were times I just wanted to skip ahead and find out what happens, but there wasn’t anything that was superfluous to the story. However, by the end there were a few plot threads that I think were slightly underdeveloped, most notably that focusing on Laurel’s relationship with her dad.
What attracted me to the book in the first place was the premise of Laurel’s ability, and I did enjoy the parts of the story where she was learning about the different messages of flowers. I wasn’t completely sure why she’d agree to help so many girls with flowers for prom when she kept saying that she didn’t want people to know what she could do. I did love the chaos at the prom, though!
I had to wait for a long time to read this book (I think someone at the library must have had a heck of a fine, because I was next on the wait list for about two months for this book), and I’m definitely glad that I finally had the chance to read it. show less

Laurel’s mother was always really into flowers, but she’s recently died, leaving Laurel with tons of questions about her mysterious new “flower power”. At her new school, her bouquets have caused teachers to fall in love and helped her friends ace their tests – but Laurel doesn’t really know what she’s doing and the wrong flowers used at the wrong time could cause chaos…

I guess I never realized how fascinating the whole language of flowers is. For example, in Victorian times, people used flowers to communicate their feelings for each other or to send other messages. It’s such a fun, fresh idea to take this language of flowers and create a heroine who can actually use flowers like magic.

It takes Laurel a while to figure show more out what’s behind her power. While I enjoyed the air of mystery, the narrative reasons why the “elders” in her life couldn’t fill her in sooner seemed too a bit forced. A teacher gives her cryptic clues but doesn’t tell her because “it’s not her place”. The grandmother is unreachable. Other characters may or may not know anything about it. I understand the need for Laurel to “blossom” on her own, and some of her early bumbling experiments have humorous outcomes, but more impatient readers might be frustrated by the slow build of the first half.

Patient readers, though, will be rewarded by an action-packed and magical second half. There are definitely some melancholic scenes throughout (after all, Laurel’s mother did die), but the narrative is so infused with love that the novel felt like a real affirmation of joy and life. show less

A different type of teen coming of age love story. A girl finds she has a talent to bring out the language and power of flowers. Well done story about a teenager who is a bit of an outcast. After her mom passes away, her dad sells the house and totally changes their lives. She attends an all girls school with a history- her grandmother and mom attended the school as well. She doesn't know about her talent, but when she give a bouquet of flowers to a spinster teacher, romance happens. I had to keep reading to find out what happened. Great story.