BOOK CLUB: I Remember Everything

I Remember Everything by Fiona Wilkes is a painful, tender, honest and deeply emotional debut LGBT fiction novel about love, friendship, chosen family, memory and loss. 

Trigger Warning: The novel contains confronting descriptions of illness and death, as well as themes of homophobia, transphobia, violence, and drug use.

Set largely in Bristol and London during the late 1970s and 1980s, the story follows Billie as she leaves behind a conservative upbringing and steps into her life as a young queer woman discovering who she truly is. At university in Bristol and later in London, she finds a diverse group of friends who become her chosen family. Together they party, argue, fall in love, make mistakes, support one another and build a world where they can exist freely until a mysterious illness begins to take hold.

When the HIV/AIDS epidemic was officially recognised in June 1981, fear and confusion swept through queer communities. With no treatments available and society responding with panic, stigma and discrimination, Billie watches helplessly as her friends become sick and, one by one, die. 

The narrative moves between Billie’s youth and her later life, where she attempts to put decades of memories into words. The contrast between the joy of queer liberation and the devastation that followed gives the novel its emotional weight. 

Wilkes excels at creating deeply human characters. Billie, Laura, Robert, Ted, Dave, Aggie, Sasha and Tolstoy all feel fully realised, with dreams, flaws, ambitions and hope. I particularly enjoyed Billie and Laura’s relationship; Their bond begins as an intense childhood friendship and evolves into something more complicated and profound. It adds enormous emotional depth to the story and anchors Billie’s journey.

The book is beautifully written and emotionally immersive. I found myself deeply attached to Billie and her circle of friends, and I appreciated how Wilkes emphasises the importance of friendship as one of the novel’s greatest strengths. These characters were so much more than the illness that claimed so many of their lives.

Wilkes’ background as a researcher and educator is evident in her handling of the historical context. Her portrayal of the AIDS crisis is grounded in lived experience and community memory. The illness is depicted as frightening, messy, and confronting, yet the story never becomes solely about suffering. It honours joy, love, resilience and the everyday humanity of those who lived through the epidemic.

I Remember Everything is a powerful tribute to a generation of queer people and to the friendships and communities that carried one another through one of the darkest periods in LGBTQIA+ history. It is not simply a novel about AIDS; it is a story about how people lived, who they loved, and what it means to remember those who were lost.

This novel lingers long after the final page. I finished it feeling immense sadness for the lives cut short, but also gratitude for the reminder that remembering someone is a way of keeping them alive. For readers who weren’t alive during the height of the AIDS epidemic, it offers a vital and compassionate window into what that era meant for queer communities.

I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy character-driven stories exploring friendship, love and loss.

A selection of our Beauty and Lace Club members are reading I Remember Everything by Fiona Wilkes. You can read their comments below, or add your own review.