"Remember Me Tomorrow"

Remember Me Tomorrow by Farah Heron

Amazon First Reads September 2024

Pages: 288 Genre: YA mystery, romance

Rating: 3 Star

Kindle Highlights

When mystery-and-octopus-enthusiast Aleeza Kassam breaks up with her lifelong best friend, she doesn't have a plan beyond "get out of our shared dorm." Luckily for her, a single dorm has opened up across campus. Unluckily, it appears as though its previous occupant is Jay Hoque who went missing (and, to most people, is presumed dead) five months ago. Even worse, he's somehow messaging her on the campus residency app. Except he's living in a reality that exists just a few weeks before he goes missing. Aleeza doesn't know what this paradox means or how it's happening, but she does know that it means there's a chance she can save his life. As she digs into his life, she realizes that there is more to Jay than meets the eye, and nothing about his disappearance is what she thought.

In a general sense, the concept for this book was well executed. There were a lot of moving parts to keep up with, between both the mystery and the unfolding timeline, but I was able to keep up with it all easily. All ducks were properly in a row, which is important for a book whose premise is as bendy as this one is.

Unfortunately, the wonky timeline stuff was not always very well executed. I'm willing to accept an "it just is" situation, and I was more than willing to do that for the time traveling dorm room. For most of the book, this works just fine. However, at the 80% mark, we are tossed a completely random and entirely separate time travel mechanic that almost ruined the whole thing for me. Maybe it's silly to get annoyed at something so small, but the whole plot hinged on this second paradox that was also never explained, was never expanded upon, and was used entirely as a plot convenience. It felt cheap. We should've either stuck with one paradox or included a lot. One is an anomaly, two is a plot device, and three is a fantasy reality.

While I overall enjoyed the story and found it endearing, I was constantly pulled out of the story by the weak writing. Everything just felt so juvenile. If you told me that the author had only experienced school as part of a 2010s DCOM, I think I'd believe you. There was way too much emphasis on the "popular kids" (never directly called that, but definitely had that vibe) and people trying to social climb into that group, which seems very silly for college. Maybe Canada is different than Texas, but I googled to see if the college is real or not (it's not), and the school that I think it was named after has 48,000 students. I just don't believe that many people would care about being friends with the cool kids or if the cute guy in the library would associate with some small town nobody. Like, it's college. No one cares. Or I guess they do in Canada, I don't know. But it felt like the musings of a teenager who was guessing was college was like. I understand that the book is YA, but I've read plenty of YA books that didn't feel as childish as this.

If you want the book to feel more relatable for high schoolers, then set it in high school. Most of the plot would've worked just as well, but it felt like the author couldn't decide between writing a cute YA mystery or a dramatic NA mystery. Topics like drugs and sex and murder (duh) felt cheapened as it was funneled through a main character who could've been either 14 or 24 depending on the needs of the chapter. In particular, the word "bullying" keeps being used, and it's not that adults can't be bullied, but what was actually happening was harassment to the point where there needed to be legal intervention. But Aleeza and co refer to it as "bullying" for the entire book, as if someone's being taunted in the hallway. I just couldn't get past how ridiculous it made the whole book feel.

Aleeza was also just not a compelling main character. From the first chapter she is chronically Not Like Other Girls (again, very 2010s DCOM) in a way that made her self pity annoying. I've been in her position before, so I'm not unsympathetic to her plight. But it seemed like she spent the entire book telling me how she's just a shy nobody who would never be liked by Cool Boys. I wanted her to have more going on other than self esteem issues, as it ultimately just came across as whiny.

She also waffled on everything the entire time. I understand that mystery books will often give you evidence that is interpreted incorrectly by the main character in order to have a twist of sorts later down the line when they learn the error of their ways, but Aleeza always seemed to take a long time to come around to information was that obviously more correct. Characters would be super upfront with her and she would doubt them. When Jay is flirting with her (that's not a spoiler, it's marketed partly as a mystery), he is pretty blunt about his exact feelings and she is still out here trying to tell me "we're obviously just friends, he could never like a girl like me." I understand that it's a mystery, but I don't like feeling so much more sure about obvious things than the main detective is.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. I did give the book 3 stars, so I obviously didn't hate it. It was cute, and I was genuinely interested in the way it was playing out. I liked reading it. But I was always more interested in the rewrites happening in my brain than I was in the text on the page. It was trying too hard to be cute that it just came across as corny. And I will not be forgiving the lazy writing at the end. Everything else was so well planned and set up, but that was just random.

As far as Amazon First Reads options go, this one wasn't horrible. But it's not one that I'll be coming back to.