Remind Me to Hate You Later

December 1, 2022
The fallout and sustained ripple effects of a young woman's death by suicide are explored in this realistic novel. Jules has long struggled with her social media-obsessed mother Britt's posts about parenting and family life. They often share a great deal more about Jules' life than is comfortable for her and also push an image and weight consciousness that damage her well-being. Her best friend, Natalie, and boyfriend, Carter, try to help her negotiate the difficult position she is in with her mom and to support her as she also experiences depression and suicidal ideation and copes by cutting herself. Shifting from the first section, in which Jules' first-person voice is centered, to the second, in which Nat is the narrator, this poignant, honest story is complexly layered, pulling in Jules' loved ones' various perspectives in unfussy, descriptive language. The backstory of Nat's family, who still grieve the death of her mother years earlier, evocatively illustrates the different ways grief can manifest and how it can defy expectations of being a linear process. The auspicious ending is welcome, though Nat's growing understanding of Britt may strike readers as coming about a bit too quickly. Main characters are cued White. A worthwhile, authentic meditation on loss, difficult family dynamics, and emotional growth. (Fiction. 13-18)

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January 9, 2023
A thoughtful meditation on social media and its effects on mental health, this moving novel by Mason (Between the Bliss and Me) follows the aftermath of a teenager’s death by suicide. Though her mother regularly documents 16-year-old Jules’s life to the five million subscribers of her parenting blog, Jules believes that her mom hates her: “She’s hated me since the day I was born with a hole in my heart. I was imperfect from the very beginning.” Though Jules is optimistic about a future with her caring boyfriend Carter and dreams of attending Le Cordon Bleu to become a chef, her self-harm, which she uses to cope, worsens. When Jules dies by suicide, the first-person perspective shifts to her best friend, Nat, who struggles to cope with Jules’s death and becomes singularly focused on showing Jules’s mother how her social media obsession affected her daughter’s self-worth. Through varying voices—Nat’s narrative reads as distant compared to Jules’s inherent expressiveness—Mason presents an intricate look at the grieving process’s myriad forms in this harrowing novel, which addresses themes of blame, regret, resentment, and shame, and how these difficult feelings can affect families and friendships. A beginning note contextualizes the issues addressed. Ages 14–up.