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Before I Forget
Tory Henwood Hoen
Publication Date: December 2nd, 2025
St. Martin’s Press
288 Pages
Amazon | Goodreads | Bookshop.org
Genre: General Fiction | New Adult | Women’s Fiction
Oh my gosh, this book! It’s about 26-year-old Cricket, and she is stuck in a rut. She is traumatized by a tragedy in her past and in a funk at her wellness job. When her dad is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she goes against her sister’s plan to move him into a care home and instead returns to her family home and becomes his caretaker. She hopes that doing this will help to fix her strained relationship with him. As she settles in, she finds that her dad’s illness of forgetting the past makes him able to predict the future.
This book is freaking incredible and truly special. It was incredibly profound and funny. The humour was witty and the story heartfelt. It sort of reads as coming of age, but the protagonist is in her twenties. The way the author dealt with Alzheimer’s was very tender and emotional. I have had to deal with this with three different family members over the years, and it was so realistic. I liked how the author didn’t just focus on the loss of a loved one with this disease; it was so uplifting at times that it surprised me. Cricket realises what she’s missed by not spending time with her dad in such a joyful way. I wanted to reach through the pages and hug her at times. I will miss both her and Arthur.
This is a short book that can be read easily in a day or two. It was funny, magical and heartbreaking. Family is complex, and so is our love for them, and Tory Henwood Hoen writes this story that way. I can’t recommend this book enough. It was captivating, charming and unforgettable from the first page to the last. All. The. Stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
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