Miss Me Not - Tiffany King

I admit that I cry when I read books, but Miss Me Not brought on a whole new kind of crying.  Maybe I shouldn't have started with that...it is a good book and I really enjoyed it, tears and all.  I do not view crying while reading as a bad thing.  When a book makes me feel so many emotions that tears are elicited, I am really impressed.

Miss Me Not is a book that discusses topics that many people choose to ignore:  teenage promiscuity and teenage suicide.  Both are important issues yet people tend to not want to talk about it.  Madison and her only friend James both have lives they wish they could forget.  So they do what seems sensible to them:  they create a suicide pact.  They intend to end their lives and disappear into nothing.  That is until their classmate Mitch beats them to the punch and kills himself.

Madison didn't really know Mitch, but his death really bothered her.  At first, it was because she saw how the kids at school who did not know or care about Mitch reacted to his death.  They used it as yet another means to get attention for themselves by feigning grief over his lost life.  Madison has no intention of letting the "populars" attract more attention to themselves by her death.  So she lives to spite them.  Or so she thinks.

Enter popular, handsome Dean into Madison's life.  Dean starts out tutoring Madison and they become friends despite Madison's idea that she is not fit for friendship with anyone other than James who is just as broken as she is.  Fortunately, Dean is quite persistent and slowly Madison learns that maybe life is worth living and maybe past mistakes can stay in the past. Maybe there is a chance for her to have a nice future. 

This is a sad, yet beautiful story of a girl trying to make sense of her own life.  She made a mistake in her past and blames herself for it, though she is not the only person who messed up.  Her mother can't forgive her, but the people that really care about her can forgive her.  More importantly, she can forgive herself.  The story makes real the topic of teenage depression and suicide.  It shows how someone's past can make other students find justification for bullying.  The story is so sad and it should be.  It should make the reader think about the issues that teens go through.  It's heart-wrenching and maybe it will make young readers realize how their words or actions make other people feel.