Fiction Book Reviews

Book Review: The Art of Forgetting

By Sandy Amazeen Sep 11, 2012, 2:05 GMT

A moving and insightful debut novel of great friendship interrupted. Can the relationship survive when the memories are gone? 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, ...more

Although their personalities are quite different, Marissa Rogers and Julia Ferrar have been friends since they were fourteen years old. The vivacious Julia has always taken charge with Marissa simply following along with whatever her friend wanted to do, a relationship that suddenly changes with a car accident. Before her brain injury that damaged the frontal lobe, Julia had been a dancer and now must struggle to regain that ability. Additionally, Julia’s personality has undergone an unexpected change as she becomes less assertive and has less of an edit mode. For the first time in their sixteen-year long friendship, Marissa has become the more dominant personality and it causes more then a few rifts as both women cope with the changed circumstances along with old and new hurts.

While an enjoyable bit of chic-lit, the story would have benefited from the addition of more history between the two friends. That addition would have provided a better appreciation for the changes Marissa and Julia went through. There is a nice sense of believability to the story, provided in part with liberal doses humor, anger, sarcasm and joy. At its heart, this is all about forgiving, forgetting and moving on with life no matter what it throws at you while reforging the bonds of friendship.