MEET ME AT BLUE HOUR, by Sarah Suk. Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins), trade paperback, 288pp. Price $19.99. Pub date: April 1, 2025.
This young adult book (13 and up) is set primarily in South Korea, centered around one of the protagonist’s mother’s clinic, Sori of Us Clinic (Sori Clinic run by Dr. Bae), a memory removal center. When Yena Bae, Dr. Bae’s daughter, comes to the clinic to work for the summer from her home with her dad in Canada, she is troubled by memories herself; memories mostly of her best friend and possibly first love, Lucas, who seemingly dumped her and disappeared when he moved to another province of Canada. All attempts at contact were met with silence. Years later she still remembers Lucas, and working in her mother’s “mixtape archive” in the clinic, runs across a mix of sounds that remind her exactly of her times with Lucas. Could it be a coincidence? The tape turns out to be his. How could he have possibly wanted to remove all memories of her? Why?
When she meets Lucas by accident outside the clinic, the mystery deepens, as do her memories of their time together and her longing to have him as her best friend again. Perhaps more than a friend…. Lucas remembers nothing of her existence. Can she remind him? What would happen to him?
And what about Lucas’s grandfather, whom Lucas wants to participate in the clinic’s new retrieval of memories study they are proposing to do. Can Lucas get his grandfather into the already booked-up study before he has to go back to Canada? Yena wants to help but can’t reveal herself as knowing the family previously.
In getting to know Lucas, Yena learns more about herself, her own memories, and what the Sori Clinic is really doing and has done in the past.
Sprinkled with chapters told from the point of view of the memory soundscape tapes themselves (a popcorn machine, a film projector, an ice cream truck, etc.), chapters alternate between Yena and Lucas. The mechanism of memory being tied to sounds isn’t a new one in neuroscience, it’s used to good purpose here and is easily accessible to younger readers. The twist in the book isn’t what you think it will be, and the characters are well drawn. Altogether an engaging read, a quick read, and a satisfying book. I would recommend this to any young adult interested in stories about relationships (both romantic and friendship), Korean culture and food (which is used lightly but to very good effect), and what makes us us — our memories.
