Don't You Forget About Me

by Alexandra Potter

[Leah]

A new Alexandra Potter book is always something to celebrate. She’s only of the only Chick Lit authors who puts a magical spin on her novels, and she’s always successful at it. She manages to make it plausible when any other author would make it sound silly and unbelievable. I suppose it’s the simplicity of her ideas. From Heather wishing on heather in Be Careful What You Wish For, to Lucy, Nate and The Bridge of Sighs in You’re The One That I Don’t Want, her ideas are simply explained and simply and easily executed. In her newest book (and first for two years, would you believe) Don’t You Forget About Me, Tess finds out what happens when you get a second chance at making the man you love fall in love with you.

Much like her previous novels, Tess’s predicament in Don’t You Forget About Me is not preposterous/silly/whatever you want to call it. In fact, it’s an excellent idea. Who wouldn’t LOVE the chance to make a better first impression on someone? To do over your entire relationship to make it better than it was? Sure, there are pitfalls. But just the general idea of getting a do-over is awesome. So to see Tess do over her relationship with Seb is brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed how we got to see firstly how Tess did it the first time then how she changed things to make sure she did it better second time around. I’m sure there’ll be people who poo-poo the whole idea and say you should never change to impress someone, but I am not one of those people so I loved the idea. If you love someone so much, you’d jump at the chance of doing it all over again, and making it right, and I loved seeing Tess do it.

Did I expect it to work for Tess and Seb? Well, no. In a word. It was fun seeing Tess try, but I wasn’t entirely convinced, though I didn’t mind how it did end. The novel wasn’t just about Tess and Seb, and I quite liked getting to see Tess’s life. Her job as a PA (a very bad one at that), her friendship with her boss, Sir Richard, her friendship with cheeky-chappie Irish courier Fergus. Most of all, though, I loved Tess’s grandfather. He was a shining light in the novel, and I loved all scenes including him. I also liked Tess’s rather scatty flat-mate and best friend Fiona, though her need to be Posh grated a little. I very much enjoyed the novel. It was a great read, and it’s so good to see Potter back with Don’t You Forget About Me. Here’s hoping her next book is just as magical and does not take two years to come out!