A story about the pressures of social media, the lengths influencers will go to for fame, and the grief of losing a loved one to suicide, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson and Gayle Forman.
Seventeen-year-old Jules grew up in her mother's spotlight. A “parenting influencer,” Britt shares details of her daughter's life-pictures, intimate stories, insecurities, all-to a point that becomes unbearable to Jules.
And suddenly she's gone.
Natalie has only barely begun to grieve her best friend Jules's death when Britt announces her plans to publish a memoir that will dissect Jules's life and death. But Nat knows the truth behind Britt's "perfect" Instagram feed-Jules hated the pressure, the inauthenticity, the persona. There's so much more to Jules than Britt and her followers could ever know. As Nat connects with Jules's boyfriend, Carter, and their shared grief and guilt bonds them, she becomes determined to expose Britt, to understand what really happened, and who is to blame.
In a world that feels distorted by celebrity and the manipulations of social media and public opinion, Natalie and Carter need something real to hold onto. Remind Me to Hate You Later is a moving account of grief, depression, complex relationships, love, and the search for truth.
Social media has now been around for long enough that some children have literally grown up on it. This is almost universally agreed to be a bad thing, and yet some mothers (and fathers, let's be fair, although in this instance it's a mother) are still doing it. In this two part book, we see a possible outcome from this kind of forced oversharing. The first section is mostly Jules' point of view, and we can see just how callous her mother is (mostly unintentionally, not that that helps) and the things she has no trouble sharing. Nat takes over for the end of the first section and all of the second half, and here the focus moves mostly away from the dangers of online sharing and into the most beautiful, honest representation of grieving I've read in a long time.
I had trouble getting through this without welling up - and since I was reading on my lunch at work, that posed a problem! (I think I covered well by coughing a lot.) This is absolutely heartbreaking in points, but just as much time is given to the healing process, with people coping in different ways and several people who are further along the healing process explaining to Nat that while the grief never goes away, it does get gentler and easier to deal with.
This is a book that celebrates life just as much as it mourns death - there are joyful, fun sections that I really enjoyed reading. It all feels very true to teen life. And notably, it doesn't completely condemn social media - Jules' mother went too far, no one argues that, but social media in itself is not demonised, which is nice. Social media is a tool, after all, and the problems come with the way it's used.
This is a really important read; even without the reasons for Jules' depression, it still has important things to say about depression, grief, friendship and love. I'm really glad I got to read it and I think it's going to be really successful.
Remind me to Hate You Later publishes on the 28th February, 2023. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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