Book Review: Say You'll Remember Me by Katie McGarry

Say You'll Remember Me
Author: Katie McGarry
Publication: Harlequin Teen (January 30, 2018)

Description: Doesn’t matter who did it. Not anymore. I did the time. It’s over.”

When Drix was convicted of a crime—one he didn’t commit—he thought his life was over. But opportunity came with the Second Chance Program, the governor’s newest pet project to get delinquents off the streets, rehabilitated and back into society. Drix knows this is his chance to get his life back on track, even if it means being paraded in front of reporters for a while.

Elle knows she lives a life of privilege. As the governor’s daughter, she can open doors with her name alone. But the expectations and pressure to be someone she isn’t may be too much to handle. She wants to follow her own path, whatever that means.

When Drix and Elle meet, their connection is immediate, but so are their problems. Drix is not the type of boy Elle’s parents have in mind for her, and Elle is not the kind of girl who can understand Drix’s messy life.

But sometimes love can breach all barriers.

Fighting against a society that can’t imagine them together, Drix and Elle must push themselves—Drix to confront the truth of the robbery, and Elle to assert her independence—and each other to finally get what they deserve.

My Thoughts: SAY YOU'LL REMEMBER ME was a hard book to read. I was so emotionally involved that I just ached for Elle and Drix. The two kids couldn't be more different. Elle is the daughter of the Governor of Kentucky. She is groomed and prepped to help her father in his campaign for Senator. She sees her Dad as her hero and really supports his goals but she is having trouble following all the rules and putting her own wants before the needs of the campaign. She has the idea, fostered by her parents, that she has to be perfect to win their approval.

Drix is poor. He accepted a plea bargain after being arrested for an armed robbery which he did not commit. The plea bargain puts him in the Governor's new program that aims to derail the path from high school to prison. The program included therapy and education and really changed Drix's life. Before he was on a path of self-destruction, he was drinking, drugging and getting into fights for fun. He's a talented musician but got the idea from his absent father that musical talent made him a god who could do whatever he wanted.

Elle and Drix meet when he rescues her from a couple of college age guys who are harassing her at a fair when all she wants to do is have fun and play some Whack-a-Mole. They are attracted but Drix doesn't get her number because he sees her as being out of his class. They meet again the next day when he comes to the Governor's to learn what his obligations are to the Governor's program. He needs to make a number of campaign appearances and talk about the program. Elle is also involved in the campaign charming donors and pushing her dad's agenda. Despite being told to keep away from each other because her parents have decided that a romance would change the focus of what they need the kids to do, Elle and Drix do spend time together getting to know each other.

Both kids have all kinds of hurdles to overcome. Drix doesn't know who he can trust. He thinks he took the fall for his best friend and keeps waiting for him to say he was sorry. He is also concerned about his younger sister's dependence on a boyfriend who isn't at all good for her. He's also afraid to go back to music because he fears that he'll be swept back into the self-destructive pattern he was in before. Elle is gradually coming to realize that all the compromises her parents are pushing on her, from the stylist and the lack of support for her desire to accept an internship to foster her talent for programming, have caused her to almost lose herself. It takes quite a while to realize that her parents are using emotional abuse and even longer to stand up to them.

This was another emotionally wrenching title from an author known for them. I enjoyed this story and this romance and recommend it to fans of the genre.

Favorite Quotes:

My muscles tense, yet my perfectly practiced smile slips upon my face because Mom has told me to never let my anger leak out in public. I hate the word beautiful. Hate it. The word beautiful somehow gives the world permission to make wrongful assumptions about me, like that I don't have a brain. Beautiful somehow gives men permission to say the phrase as a secret password in my direction, and should therefore fall at their feet. Beautiful makes people believe they can say anything they want about or to me and that I shouldn't be angry.

Nothing in the universe could be more wrong.

*****

I understand trying to please someone you think loves you. To keep that love, you keep twisting and bending yourself to become who they want you to be until you eventually break. There's a hole in them, a hole they need filled, and they want you to become the circle that will fit into them and make them complete, even though you're a square. It's an awful place to be, the person responsible for someone else's happiness, because being human, we're going to fail.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.