Reviews - We Came Here to Forget: A Novel

179 reviews for:

We Came Here to Forget: A Novel

Andrea Dunlop

3.81 AVERAGE

aimeesal's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I zoomed through this book, which means I really liked it!! I read the author’s nonfiction book first, but I liked this one a lot more - it was still informative about MBP, but in the context of an engaging narrative. When a book has two concurrent narratives like this, it is rare that I am equally attached to both. In this case, I was as happy to learn about Liz’s life in Buenos Aires as I was to learn about Katie’s life before.

Content Warnings

eleni_flores's review against another edition

3.0

3.5 stars

The only word I can come up with to describe this book is "fine." It wasn't bad, but it never gripped me, either. It's a dual timeline following Katie Cleary as she's an aspiring Olympic skier with a problematic sister, and Liz Sullivan, Katie's reinvented self as she's living in Buenos Aires to escape from the drama of her real life.

The majority of the book builds up to a mysterious but horrible truth about Katie's sister Penny, though I'd say it was less suspenseful and more taunting. When it was finally revealed, I felt a little underwhelmed after all the setup, though I did figure it out fairly early, so that could have been part of it.

Without giving away too much, I'll say that I thought it was a little unrealistic in terms of Katie fleeing the country to avoid recognition for the situation in which her family found itself. Yes, she was an elite athlete, but so few winter sports athletes become that well known across the world that at her level, it didn't seem realistic that her family would get national attention for what her sister did. But that's just my take.