December 4, 2020
Gr 6-10-The Valentine's Day festivities at her high school leave senior Ella Fitzpatrick on edge. A year ago she had a serious car accident after leaving the holiday dance early. While physically recovered, Ella cannot remember anything from the weeks prior to the accident, including why she left the dance. Ella has also found it uncomfortable to step back into her former life. She frequently notices her best friends mocking other students. More disturbingly, she finds ample evidence that she behaved similarly in the past. But a paper heart message from a secret admirer sends Ella on a journey to fill in the blanks in her memory. As Ella deciphers each clue, she begins to come out of her post-accident shell and make new friends that feel more comfortable than her old ones, including adorkable Andy, who becomes her scavenger hunt partner. Will the girl who believes that everyone gets a love story finally write her own? Hartwell gives the accident-induced amnesia trope a meet-cute, and a romantic spin. Ella is engaging as she evolves from her formerly shallow self. Her romance with Andy is obvious from their first interaction, but readers will enjoy waiting for Ella to open her heart to this boy from outside her social set. While most plot threads wrap up neatly, the story does end with the acknowledgment that Ella may not be able to maintain her new friends and salvage her old ones as well. Characters' ethnicities aren't explicitly stated. VERDICT Romance fans will enjoy this light, do-over love story wrapped up in a mysterious scavenger hunt.-Nancy Nadig, Penn Manor Sch. Dist., Lancaster, PA
Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 15, 2020
An amnesiac high school senior embarks on a Valentine-themed quest to recover her past. Ella Fitzpatrick is a planner who had her life under perfect control until a terrible accident took away her memories of the previous 11 weeks. A year later, she's still agonizing over why, exactly, she broke up with her boyfriend and became estranged from her lifelong friends; but an anonymous note in the shape of a heart begins a scavenger hunt she hopes will return everything she had forgotten. Anyone who has seen a Hallmark movie will recognize every trope and narrative beat, although they fit awkwardly into this novel. Even readers who suspend disbelief to embrace the premise will likely tire of the brand-name-dropping, and Ella, who is a stereotypical, self-centered Type A protagonist, feels likable mostly for being less awful than her mean-girl friends--and for her self-awareness in recognizing how easily she could be much worse. She's a pretty girl from a wealthy family who seems entirely unaware of her privileges; her love interest is neither quirky nor charming enough to save things, and their bickerflirting becomes tedious. The paper hearts gimmick is cute, but once everyone's secrets are revealed, the superficial romance is overshadowed by many characters' creepy, manipulative behavior. A few surnames hint at ethnic diversity; Ella and her love interest are cued as White. A fluffy enough diversion for voracious rom-com fans. (Romance. 12-18)
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