FORGET ME

Her boyfriend was supposed to be dead.

It’s been three months since Morgan’s secretive, aloof boyfriend, Flynn, died in a hit-and-run accident. In her economically depressed central Massachusetts town, in which Stell Pharmaceuticals went under and brought down other businesses with it, everyone’s moved on—except Morgan. In an attempt at closure, the teen enters Flynn’s photo into “FriendShare,” a social media facial-recognition program. She finds only questions, though, when his photo brings up an identical look-alike named Evan in a neighboring town. Morgan can’t help but wonder if her ex-boyfriend was a liar—and even if he’s really dead. Her evenly paced, past-tense narration recounts her investigation to discover the real identities of both Flynn and Evan—or if they’re one and the same. In the process, she finds a clean romance and a dirty conspiracy involving Stell Pharmaceuticals. As the ring of townsfolk involved widens, Morgan fears that she may be the next “accident” victim.

The teen’s likable, tenacious character and the story’s Hollywood-like ending keep this debut on the lighter side, making it just right for late-summer beach reading.