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BOOK REVIEW
Book Review: Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry
***PLEASE NOTE THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS***
I listened to the middle grade/YA novel, Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry, and was amazed by the lyrical language used to explore the often-misunderstood disorder Tourette’s Syndrome. When I chose the title from the digital library, I was unaware it is a novel in verse. I ordered a paperback copy when I finished the audio version to see whether the lyricism stemmed from the beautiful narration on the audio or the text. It is both.
The author narrates in two distinct voices: Calliope and Jinsong. The first main character, Calliope, is a pre-teen with Tourette’s Syndrome. Her disorder manifests in facial tics, uncontrolled movements, as well as, repetitive vocal sounds. Her mother is a flighty, codependent sort of person who fell apart after her husband, Calliope’s father, died in a car accident. Whenever the mother breaks up with a boyfriend, they move to another town, city, or state. The reader is introduced to Calliope as she is moving to her tenth school. She had been told by her mother and a specialist to keep her diagnosis a secret, but she cannot suppress all of her tics and is bullied. She finds friendship with her neighbor, Jinsong, who struggles with embarrassment over her tics. The reader is privy to both Calliope’s and Jinsong’s thoughts as they navigate their friendship. Just as Jinsong finds the inner strength to overcome his friends’ disapproval, Calliope’s mother marries without her daughter’s knowledge or approval. Calliope reaches a breaking pointing at the prospect of yet another move. She manages to find her voice and talk to her mother honestly for the first time. The author leaves the reader at Calliope’s new school. We have the satisfying impression that Calliope will make friends. She has accepted herself. Her mother even promises that they can visit Jinsong over vacation.
The author creates Calliope’s voice through poetry: imagery and line. Calliope’s pages read like free-verse poems while Jinsong’s are complete sentences divided into paragraphs. The contrast between the two styles is striking. They illustrate how differently Calliope perceives the world. The author disproves the common belief that Tourette’s Syndrome affects intelligence…
