Sunday 19 September 2010

Review: Forget-Her-Nots - Amy Brecount White

Now! she thought.  Her right hand seemed to lift on it's own and reach toward the bouquet.  "Bright cut flowers," she whispered, "Leaves of green, bring about what I have seen."  When the last word left her tongue, her whole body tingled and hummed, as if a note was reverberating deeply inside her.

Something - some power - is blooming inside Laurel.  She can use flowers to do things.  Like bringing back lost memories.  Or helping her friends ace tests.  Or making people fall in love.

Laurel suspects her new found ability has something to do with an ancient family secret, one that her mother meant to share with Laurel when the time was right.  But then time ran out.

Clues and signs and secret messages seem to be all around Laurel at Avondale School, where her mother had also boarded as a student.  Can Laurel piece everything together quickly enough to control her power, which is growing more potent every day?  Or will she set the stage for the most lovestruck, infamous prom in the history of the school?

Visit Amy Brecount White's website for more information

Review:
Laurel is trying to cope with the grief caused by her mother's death, she doesn't have a brilliant relationship with her father and hopes to feel closer to her mother by attending the boarding school her mother graduated from.  Things start to change for Laurel when she gives a talk in her English class about the language of flowers.  As she is explaining to the class how Victorian lovers would communicate to each other by sending messages in bunches of flowers (called tussie-mussies) she creates a posy to encourage love and gives it to one of her teachers.  As her teacher finds love Lauren's reputation as the flower girl spreads around the school and she suddenly has more and more requests for help from other students.

Forget-Her-Nots is a light hearted read and I really enjoyed learning about the language of flowers.  This wasn't something I knew anything about before starting this book but I found the history of the language fascinating - it made me look at flowers in a whole new light.  Amy Brecount White incorporated magic into the story in an unusual way which made the story interesting to read.  I enjoyed the fact that Laurel was having to learn about her powers as she went along, to start with she had nobody to teach her or show her how things worked.

Laurel was a likable character but she wasn't someone that I found myself able to relate to or caring for a great deal.  None of the other characters are ones that will stick with me and I had trouble keeping track of who was who as I was reading.  Although I liked the idea behind the magic of the flowers I found the plot was a little slow moving without much happening - particularly at the beginning of the book.  Forget-Her-Nots was enjoyable for the differences to anything else I've read but although I liked it it wasn't a book that wowed me.

Source: Received as part of a book tour arranged by International Book Tours, this book has already been sent on to it's next destination.

Other reviews of this book:
Shut Up I'm Reading
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

2 comments:

  1. Nice review! This one was pretty good, light. Not amazing, so I guess we pretty much agree. Here's my review: http://shutupimreading.blogspot.com/2010/04/forget-her-nots-review.html

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  2. Hi Jessica, it was a light fun read but not my favorite book this year :o) I've added your link for you

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