(Don't You) Forget About Me

Gr 8 Up—Skylar lives in a purple haze. Ever since her beloved older sister, Piper, led a group of local teenagers to their death, she's been trying to forget her life by swallowing pills. Skylar lives in Gardnerville, a creepy town where no one gets sick and everyone lives well into their second century. Well, almost everyone. Teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 are susceptible to violence and when they snap, they're punished in the reformatory. That's what happened to Piper and that's what Skylar fears will happen to her. But Skylar is not like other Gardnerville teens. She has an inexplicable power; a power so strong that she could destroy the town, the reformatory, even herself, anything to find her sister. Readers expecting a fast-paced plot won't necessarily find it here. Rather, they'll need to take their time following Skylar's drug-induced narration in order to see how all the pieces come together. Even though readers are inside her head, it's hard to know what truly drives Skylar other than her obsession with finding out what happened to Piper. Fans of Nova Ren Suma's Imaginary Girls (Dutton, 2011) will enjoy this dark and magical surrealism.—Kimberly Garnick Giarratano, Rockaway Township Public Library, NJ