Review: I Know You Remember by Jennifer Donaldson

Author: Jennifer Donaldson
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date:  October 2019

Zahra Gaines is missing.

After three long years away, Ruthie Hayden arrives in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska to this devastating news. Zahra was Ruthie's best friend--the only person who ever really understood her--and she vows to do whatever it takes to find her.

Zahra vanished from a party just days before Ruthie's return, but the more people she talks to, the more she realizes that the Zahra she knew disappeared long before that fateful night. Gone is the whimsical, artistic girl who loved books and knew Ruthie's every secret. In her place is an athlete, a partier, a girl with secrets of her own. Darker still are the rumors that something happened to Zahra while Ruthie was gone, something that changed her forever...

As Ruthie desperately tries to piece together the truth, she falls deeper and deeper into her friend's new world, circling closer to a dangerous revelation about what Zahra experienced in the days before her disappearance--one that might be better off buried.

I Know You Remember involves Ruthie who return so Alaska to live with her father after the death of her mother.  She is happy because she has missed her best friend.  There is one problem, Zahra is missing. Ruthie is determined to find out what happened to her best friend.   I had to let this book sit with me for a bit.  I liked it, I just didn't love it as much as I was hoping I would.

The one thing that I did like about the book was that it went in a direction that I wasn't expecting.  Looking back I can see clues to one of the twists, but I apparently wasn't paying close enough attention. I liked each and every one of the twists. Yes, there are a few.  I didn't like the epilogue.  It left me unsatisfied.  But my biggest issue with the book was the pacing.  For the majority of it, the book kind of dragged.  For people who want to find a missing person, it seemed like no one was making an effort to search for her.  I didn't like many of the characters. That included the main character, Ruthie.  She was kind of annoying.  I'm not saying this is a bad book.  It just wasn't what I was hoping for.  Give it a try.