The Forgotten Hours by Katrin Schumann (Details)
Book Title: The Forgotten Hours
Book Author: Katrin Schumann
Audio Narrator: Bailey Carr
Audio Length: 11 Hours and 29 Minutes
Date Published: February 1, 2019
Number Of Pages: 361
Achievements: Bestseller: Washington Post, Amazon Charts
My Rating: ★★★
The Forgotten Hours (Summary)
Katie Gregory has her life together and she’s happy. She’s recently graduated from college, has a job she likes, a great boyfriend, and is really excited about the fact that her dad is getting out of prison.
Six years ago, her father was falsely accused of raping Katie’s best friend, but now that he’s getting out, he has a positive outlook on life and can’t wait to get back into the world.
Reporters start calling Katie, bringing up long forgotten memories. She ignores them but starts to wonder about the truth when she discovers old letters and court documents.
Warning: this book contains highly triggering rape content.
The Forgotten Hours (Book Review)
I was excited to read this book and loved it right away. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long.
I enjoyed the flashbacks into the past where Katie and her best friend, Lulu, spent summers together from the ages of 8-15. The 7-year friendship takes them through their growth of young girls to adolescents and was almost a sweet coming of age story.
For me, Katie never seems to grow up. She’s stuck in the mentality of a whiny, selfish teenager. Everything she says or does revolves around her father’s opinion of her.
Everything in Katie’s life seems to be going great until 3 weeks before her father is scheduled to be released. Then, it’s like one thing happens after another. It was a bit too much. Just when I thought that there was already too much drama in Katie’s life, something else goes wrong.
I don’t like spoilers, but the climax… wow. Let’s just say it was anti-climatic and predictable with the added drama of yet more unnecessary issues.
As for the book’s handling of such a sensitive topic, something that’s discussed so openly with the #metoo movement these days, I was not happy.
I think the author tried to be sensitive to the topic, especially during the court scene where Lulu was constantly asked if she needed a break. But, the questions during the trial and at the end of the book were, to me, victim shaming. Also, Katie’s father was always discussed as a type of hero, even by those that believed he did it.
The Forgotten Hours (Audiobook Review)
I liked the voice of narrator Bailey Carr and really enjoyed listening to her in the beginning. As the story progressed, I started to get annoyed. I’m not completely sure if the parts I didn’t like were the writing itself or the narrator’s over-emphasis. Was I upset about the character being whiny because of the writing or the narrator? I couldn’t tell.
