After 15 year old Violetta Chen-Samuels accidentally kills her younger sister Vivian, she is given a choice to either take part in the Trials, a form of restorative justice with the type of punishment being determined by the victim's family, or remain in juvenile detention. Naturally, she chooses the Trials, and the only way out is to convince her family of her remorse.
Violetta's older brother Vince is a golden boy, being scouted by prestigious colleges due to his track talent. After one of his sisters dies and the other is incarcerated, he is forced to determine what he truly wants while working through his grief.
Forgive Me Not provides examples of:
- Accidental Child-Killer Backstory: The protagonist accidentally killed her seven year old sister in a drunk driving accident.
- Accidental Murder: While drunk, Violetta told her younger sister Viv that she could ride along with her, and Viv was killed when Violetta swerved. Violetta was charged with manslaughter because she was the one driving recklessly.
- Aesop Collateral Damage:
- The main character's seven year old sister has to die for the main character to learn not to drink and drive.
- It takes Letta to essentially be tortured repeatedly for over a month for her parents to realize that the Trials were useless. They forgive her and get her therapy, which actually helps with the issues that landed her in juvie in the first place instead of creating even more trauma.
- Affectionate Nickname:
- Vivian's was Viv.
- Letta is short for Violetta.
- Vin/Vince is short for Vincent.
- Black Sheep: Even before the accident, Violetta felt like her parents favored her siblings because of Violetta's shy nature.
- Child of Two Worlds: Letta and her siblings have a Black father and a Chinese-American mother.
- Cold-Blooded Torture:
- Letta regards Endurance Trials as a pointless vindictive infliction of pain. Her friend Petra's Trial was to pick trash out of thorny bushes for months, leaving her with constant lacerations all over her arms and hands. She was allowed a jacket in the winter, which helped somewhat, but no gloves.
- Serena's Trial is to work in an ammunitions factory, leaving her with plenty of horrible burns from the molten metal.
- Covers Always Lie: While Letta is wearing a yellow jumpsuit on the cover, it is described as grey in the book.
- Crime of Self-Defense: Petra was incarcerated for stabbing a man who was trying to rape her because he was the son of the borough's council member. His parents argued that she didn't have to stab him so close to the spine, which left him with permanent disabilities.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Petra tries to kill herself after she realizes that her victim's family withdrew their forgiveness, landing her back in jail.
- LeVaughn Harrison, the teenager whose crime sparked the reforms that lead to this book's criminal justice system, hung himself while in jail.
- Drunk Driver: Violetta was driving drunk, which caused the accident that killed her sister.
- Functional Addict: Vince is addicted to some kind of prescription drug, and he is shown to function perfectly fine despite the cravings, even receiving offers from universities because of his track talent.
- Institutional Apparel: Inmates at Piedmont are given jumpsuits.
- Killing in Self-Defense: Petra killed a man who was trying to sexually assault her by stabbing him with a pair of scissors. She was arrested because he was the son of the borough's council member, and his parents argued that she didn't have to stab him so close to the spine, which left him with permanent disabilities.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The Comprehension Trials generally are a punishment that relates to the offender's crime. Letta's is working in a morgue preparing bodies for funerals as a punishment for manslaughter.
- Never Going Back to Prison: After her victim's family rescind their forgiveness, Petra tries to kill herself so that she doesn't have to stay in juvenile detention.
- The Pardon: In future New York, juvenile offenders can have their crimes erased and be released immediately if they manage to convince the victim or victim's family of their guilt and are forgiven. Most can't, and have the choice between juvenile detention which stays on their record forever, or the Trials, which are activities geared to make a young offender feel remorse. While taking part in the Trials, the victim can forgive the offender at any time and are actually given livestreams/recordings of the offender's Trials. They also have a government employee telling them every so often if the offender has had progress.
- Prison:
- The part of the story from Violetta's point of view takes place in the juvenile detention center where she is currently incarcerated.
- Vince is later incarcerated for his drug use.
- Profiling: Implied. Letta notes that the inmate population at a juvenile detention center are mostly black and brown, while the staff are overwhelmingly white.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Inverted and downplayed. Violetta's parents' car insurance skyrockets because they couldn't prevent their daughter from stealing their car and getting into a fatal accident.
- Tagline: "How far would you go for forgiveness?"
- Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: Invoked with Violetta's (and later Vince's) chapters having tally marks (representing the days since incarceration) under the title.
- Tragic Keepsake: Viv's parents keep her room exactly the way it was the day of her death, with opened drawers and empty red envelopes from Chinese New Year pinned to a corkboard.
- Twofer Token Minority: Vince is Black and gay, while the majority of the cast is straight.
