(Don't You) Forget About Me by Kate Karyus Quinn

(Don’t You) Forget About Me by Kate Karyus Quinn is her second book, after she debuted with Another Little Piece.  In this world Skylar lives in a quiet town, but it is not like every other small town in the USA, it has a couple of secrets too big to be another small town.  In Gardnerville no one gets sick, people don’t age as quickly, some have disturbing powers, and people who are deathly ill make a full recovery when they move there.  It is a town that is classified as invite only and the invite is loaded with a secret.  You see, for all the benefits of this town, there are some major setbacks.  One of the setbacks happen to be that once you move there you must cut off all your ties to the outside world, and you can never leave.  Another setback, every 4 years the teens go crazy.  They kill each other or hurt each other and sometimes it all escalates from something small, like ballet.  If someone hurts each other during the 4^th year, they are sent away to do time in their “penitentiary” which is really hospital, and the people that come back almost have a lobotomized personality that replaces the old them.  4 years ago Skylar’s sister, Piper, led a group of people to the railroad tracks and made them jump; now 4 years later Skylar is nervous she might end up where Piper is.  What Skylar does is drug herself enough where she forgets things, because forgetting is better than knowing what really happened.  Forgetting about Piper has made it easier, but during her lucid periods Skylar knows there is something wrong, that Piper’s ex-lover is up to something, that Piper would never be defeated, and that she must find her before it is too late.  But in the town of Gardnerville, being a Gardner like Skylar, means it has always been too late to leave and too late to save yourself. 

Another creepy and inventive story from one of my new favorite authors.  If you are looking for a different book/story to be told, with dark undertones Kate Karyus Quinn is the author to look for.

 

4 out 5 stars.  Thanks Edelweiss.