Remember To Forget, a novel by Ashley Royer

The book Remember To Forget written by Ashley Royer is a fiction piece about a teen named Levi who had become mute. After his girlfriend Delia passed away, he struggled to come out of his depression His mother ends up sending Levi from Australia to America where his father lives. Levi and his father struggle to live in the same house due to a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding. When he moves in with his father, he meets his neighbors, Delilah and Aiden. Levi doesn’t get along with Delilah and Aiden at first, but once he begins to learn more about them, he notices they all have more in common than he thought. This is when Levi decides to break the friendships he had with Delilah and Aiden, shortly after he realizes that Delilah reminds him very much of his past girlfriend Delia. Levi asks for Delilah’s forgiveness and the story continues. The story continues going through Levi’s life in Maine and his friendships with Delilah and Aiden along with others.

In an interview I had with the author Ashley Royer, I asked, “What inspired you to write the book and if you’re comfortable with me asking, was anything in the story based on any of your real life experiences that might’ve influenced the story?”.

Ashley replied, “Nothing really inspired me. I just really love to write and I’m super interested in mental illnesses. I’m minoring in psychology because of my huge interest in psych. The ideas all came from my imagination, usually right before I fell asleep. So nope, none of it was from my personal life!” This was interesting to know it was all just Ashley’s imagination and none of it was inspired from her personal life.

I also asked Ms.Royer, “What was going through your mind when you were going through the publishing process?”

She replied stating, “It was really quick. I only had three weeks to edit the entire book, and that’s after I requested an extension! I was a junior in high school, had a job, and a social life to try and maintain, so it was a lot to balance for those three weeks.”

Knowing Ashley only had three weeks to edit the book and she was working and attending school while this was happening is amazing to me. It’s amazing that a junior in high school published such an amazing book and was able to juggle everything else as well as editing the book. I ended the short interview session by asking Ashley “Since you published the book while a junior in high school, how did you feel? Were you nervous? How did it feel to still be in high school and have a published book out?”

“I was really hesitant when my mom first said I should try to get it published.” Ashley said. “ I didn’t have that great of a high school experience. I lost a lot of friends from my online popularity, and publishing a book added to that, but more people knew me and a lot of people at school were super excited and bought the book! There’s positives and negatives to everything!”

I highly recommend the book Remember To Forget by Ashley Royer. It’s an amazing piece, beautifully written. I can honestly say I found the book relatable. I think it is important to relate to books, especially young readers who may be experiencing things like the character Levi was; there's always help out there, and there will always be someone to talk to.