The Forgetting

Life in Canaan is orderly. Everyone has a job.  Everyone knows their place.  The most important rule in Canaan is to write in your book every day.  If it's not written down, it isn't real because every twelve years, everyone forgets.

Everyone except Nadia, that is.  She was just a little girl at the last forgetting, but for some reason, she remembers everything. She remembers the madness and chaos in the days leading up to the forgetting, and she remembers her father taking her book and replacing it with another one.  Now, her mother is a widow, she and her sisters don't have a father, and her father has a new family on the other side of town.

As the next forgetting draws near, there is unrest in Canaan.  There's a food shortage, and the council has imposed new rules and restrictions. Nadia isn't the only one upset by these changes, but she is the only one with the context of her memories to logically question them.

Along with Gray, the handsome glassblower's son, she begins to investigate seriously.  What causes the forgetting, and could there be a way to prevent it.  The more time she spends with Gray, the more she wants to stop the forgetting, and the closer they get to the startling truth, the more danger they find.

Sharon Cameron's series opener feels like a classic dystopia, but there is an interesting twist about halfway through.  Recommended for grades 7 and up for some making out one or two instances of profanity.