Review: The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy

Publisher:Sky Pony Press
Publication Date: April 7, 2015
Rating: 5 Stars

If I let you read mine, will you let me read yours?

Forgotten Girl, a fifteen-year-old poet, is going through the most difficult time of her life—the breakup of her parents, and her mom’s resulting depression—when she meets Random Boy, a hot guy who, like her, feels like an outcast and secretly writes poetry to deal with everything going on in his life.

In The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy, the couple’s poems come together to tell their unique love story. The two nameless teenagers come from opposite sides of the tracks, yet they find understanding in each other when they lay bare their life stories through the poetry they write and share with each other.

Through verse, they document the power of first kisses, the joy of finally having someone on their side, the devastation of jealousy, and the heartbreaking sadness of what each of them is simultaneously dealing with at home and hiding from the world. Finally they have someone to tell and somewhere to tell it in their marble notebook.

This is the powerful story of two imperfect teens in first love who find solace in poetry.(Goodreads)
 
This is a fantastic book. The book is written in pros, which really suites the content. This was a tough book to read, not because it wasn't great, but the content became dark toward the end and pretty much broke my heart. It got very Ellen Hopkins-y.

This book is about a girl who's parents have just fallen apart and her mother has slid until an unresponsive depression. Forgotten Girl (we never learn their names) leans out the window and meets Random Boy. Their relationship kind of explodes into drinking, smoking, bad decisions, and more. She's looking for someone to care, someone to pay attention, someone to see her, and this Random Boy is looking for exactly the same thing.

I've seen relationships like this before. With the exception of the scary end and ciolence, I've been in a relationship similar to this before. You're with this person because you don't know where else to go, or who else to be be. Although you know you should walk away, you're more afraid of what thing would be like without them, than with them. This is a mistake that many girls make when their young, like Forgotten Girl. She was lost and slowly tumbled into this relationship that was more toxic than not. It's hard to recognize the signs of a toxic relationship at that young an age, and it's even harder to pull yourself out of it. It's an almost impossible feat for an adult, let alone a 15 year old girl. As dark as this book got, it's an important story to tell, and I though Jaskulka did it beautifully.