The Awful Truth About Forgetting

L. Jagi Lamplighter has done it again: the fourth of the Rachel Griffin books is out, as of yesterday. This is a delightful series, based on a storyline devised by Mark Whipple, about a girl whose memory is supposedly perfect—she forgets nothing, and can bring to her mind anything she’s ever seen and replay it like a recording, even slowing it down as needed. This quirk, even more than the fact that she’s British nobility or that she’s a magic user at a school for sorcery, drives the plot. What brings it into high relief is that she lives in a world much like our own a few years in the future, but suffering from a strange sort of amnesia: no one (Rachel included) remembers anything about the great monotheistic religions of the world. (The polytheistic ones are still going strong, however.) Perhaps it’s a parallel world where the monotheistic religions were never invented; that would almost make sense, except there are certain details that don’t fit...

The explanation for the mystery is still elusive, but readers do get some more hints in THE AWFUL TRUTH ABOUT FORGETTING. I had the privilege to read a draft of it awhile back. As I recall, besides dealing with danger and intrigue, Rachel has some more usual schoolgirl fun and anxieties in this book: but lacking Rachel’s perfect memory I’m going to read it again this winter. The cover picture is of a particularly gorgeous and magical scene.

There are also five black and white illustrations in the book, drawn by John C. Wright himself! They ought to be in the table of contents too. If you want to turn to them, I found them in chapters 2, 5, 12, 22, and 37, either the beginning or end of each of these chapters. They also appear in this terrific trailer by Ben Zwycky (music by Gilbert and Sullivan, can’t go wrong!).

Another good installment in Rachel’s story. I hope we don’t have so long to wait for book five!