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My BOTM Pick for December: Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen; Retail $25.06
Back of Book Summary:
Call it inertia. Call it a quarter-life crisis. Whatever you call it, Cricket Campbell is stuck. Despite working at a zeitgeisty wellness company, the 26-year-old feels anything but well. Still adrift after a tragedy that upended her world a decade ago, she has entered early adulthood under the weight of a new burden: her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
When Cricket’s older sister Nina announces it is time to move Arthur from his beloved Adirondack lake house into a memory-care facility, Cricket has a better idea. In returning home to become her father’s caretaker, she hopes to repair their strained relationship and shake herself out of her perma-funk. But even deeply familiar places can hold surprises.
As Cricket settles back into the family house at Catwood Pond―a place she once loved, but hasn’t visited since she was a teenager―she discovers that her father possesses a rare gift: as he loses his grasp of the past, he is increasingly able to predict the future. Before long, Arthur cements his reputation as an unlikely oracle, but for Cricket, believing in her father’s prophecies might also mean facing the most painful parts of her history. As she begins to remember who she once was, she uncovers a vital truth: the path forward often starts by going back.
With laugh-out-loud humor and profound grace, Before I Forget explores the nuances of family, the complexities of memory, and how sometimes, the people we know the best are the ones who surprise us the most.
My Summary
When Cricket Campbell returns to her father's lake house in upstate New York, she's looking to get unstuck.
Working as an assistant to a Goop-esque wellness CEO, Cricket has found herself unable to move forward, frozen by a tragedy from her teenage years that she's never fully processed.
Now her father Arthur has Alzheimer's disease, and her older sister Nina has decided it's time to move him into a memory care facility. Nina is everything Cricket isn't — organized, competent, and sure of her future.
With a job opportunity waiting for her in Scandinavia, Nina is most definitely not stuck, and Cricket is moved to make her own move forward. Surprising everyone — including herself — Cricket offers up an alternative: She'll move back to the home in the Adirondacks that she hasn't visited in nine years and become Arthur's caretaker.
What unfolds is far stranger and more beautiful than anyone could have predicted. As Arthur's memory of the past dissolves, he develops an uncanny ability to glimpse the future. What starts with small moments like predicting the return of loons to the pond or helping a grieving father find peace gradually transforms Arthur into an unlikely local oracle.
For Cricket, her father's gift becomes both a blessing and a challenge. Each prophecy seems to push her closer to confronting the tragedy she's been running from for nearly a decade. The past and present collide in ways both heartbreaking and healing, forcing Cricket to reckon with who she was, who she's become, and who she might still be.
The Verdict
Before I Forget is that rare novel that manages to be tender and magical while also being heartbreaking and hopeful. Somehow, my December choice from BOTM Club does all of this without ever tipping into sentimentality.
Tory Henwood Hoen has written a book about Alzheimer's disease that refuses to be only about loss. Instead, this December BOTM Club pick challenges us to consider what might emerge when conventional memory fades, and whether the letting go of the past might actually be a form of grace.
The magical realism element of Arthur's prophetic abilities could have easily felt gimmicky, but Hoen's sophomore novel handles it with surprising restraint and emotional intelligence.
Arthur doesn't perform miracles. He simply seems to access a kind of unfiltered empathy and knowing that emerges as the filters of ego and explicit memory dissolve. It's a beautiful meditation on what might remain when everything we think defines us falls away.
Value — Was This Box Worth It?
Was the December 2025 BOTM Club subscription worth it? Let's do the math!
The BOTM Club starts at $17.99, depending on your chosen subscription (the first month of a subscription is currently $9.99), and the hardcover of Before I Forget currently retails for $25.06 at Amazon. That's a solid savings of $7 and some change (or about 27% off retail).
The
The Cost: $9.99 (This price is only for your first month).
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