“Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac” by Gabrielle Zevin

After reading and loving Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Sam and I both were interested in reading more Zevin. Sam went with AJ Fikry (which I then read later), but the title of this amnesiac book was the one that most piqued my interest. I knew ahead of time that it was YA, which isn't always my favorite genre (at least not since I was a YA myself), but I wanted to give it a try anyway. 

Well, here were my thoughts as of page 20: This book is silly. 

And yet within three days I’d already finished reading it, so it couldn't have been all that bad. It never did really grab me, but it was enjoyable enough. 

This story follows a teenage girl, Naomi Porter, as she tries to regain her memories after falling down the steps outside her high school and getting a nasty knock on the head. She's seventeen years old, but she has lost all her memories since the time she was in middle school. She's forgotten her parents' divorce, and she doesn't even recognize her own boyfriend. 

The first half of the book seemed a bit contrived, with the amnesia just a plot point that allows Naomi to learn about her life along with the reader. The second half of the book was somewhere between surprising and annoying as Naomi realizes how much the fall has changed her. I'm obviously no expert, but I find it difficult to believe that a few forgotten memories would so completely change who you are on the inside. Would you really make such completely different decisions the second time around just because you forgot what you'd chosen the first time around? To me, the mystique of amnesia lies with the potential when uncovering what's hidden. In this book, nothing is really hidden--there are no real surprises or twists--it just takes some time for Naomi to put all the pieces back together. 

Ultimately, I was a bit disappointed in this book but that was most likely due to unrealistic expectations. 

“The Girls” by Emma Cline

Well, Sam was right--The Guest was better than The Girls, and I was right too--I should have read The Girls first. I think I would have liked this one more if it wasn't suffering in comparison to its successor.

This is the story of Evie Boyd, a fictional hanger-on of the Manson Family. In fact, all of the characters were fictionalized, or at least given pseudonyms. I did briefly contemplate that decision (why bother? why not just give everyone their real names?) but I came to the conclusion that this allowed the writer greater creative freedom rather than requiring historical accuracy. 

I'm not eager to read about serial killers or senseless murder (though I guess I would say, for me, it's one step above reading about war, which is nothing if not officially-sanctioned senseless murder) but this book benefits from not really being *about* the Manson murders; they're more of a backdrop. What is really central to the story is fourteen-year-old Evie's obsession with Suzanne, the beautiful older girl whose gravitational attraction separates Evie from her mundane life and pulls her into the inner circle of a cult. Part of the story is told years later, and it's unsettling to see how Evie has spent her life just drifting off on an aimless trajectory after her release from orbit.  

Did I like the book? Meh. I mean, it definitely wasn't a chore to read. But ultimately it left me a little disappointed. 

“Dinner: Changing the Game” by Melissa Clark

What's this? Another cookbook blog post? 

I promise I am not trying to turn this into a cooking blog. It is, and always will be, a reading blog. However, technically I did read this entire cookbook. In fact, I did more than just read this entire cookbook: I cooked every single recipe in it. All 225 of them! Did it take years? Yes! Was it awesome? Also yes! I even took it on vacation with me, more than once. (Hi, Hot Springs and Santa Fe!) I cooked a recipe from it the first time my son brought his then-girlfriend, now-wife over for dinner. I cooked a meal for my best friend from high school. I was brave enough to invite our foodie friend (the might-as-well-be-a-chef type) over for a meal cooked from this book. If there were an award for Best Cookbook Ever, this one would win hands down (and forks up).

Every time I cooked a recipe, I took notes. (Right there in the cookbook! My mom would be horrified. Five-year-old me still vividly remembers the We Don’t Write In Books conversation.) My notes are a combination of helpful hints for next time (when did the heat need adjusting? what did I use as a substitute for broccoli rabe? when did I use feta because I couldn't find any ricotta salata?) and diary entries about the who, when, and where of each meal. 

Towards the end I even started sticking photographs of my finished meals on the pages that didn’t already have a picture. (I just wish I’d had that idea four years ago!) My photos, of course, are nowhere near as beautiful as the ones already in the book, but they add another dimension to what has become an intensely personalized keepsake. 

“Foe” by Iain Reid

Sam said I wouldn’t like this book. He said it was terrible and he didn't recommend it. But I decided to read it anyway. (Because it was the shortest book in my main TBR pile? Maybe.)

I'm not sure what Foe seemed like to Sam, but as I read I found it similar to Philip K Dick: mysterious, intriguing, strange. And I never got to the point where I didn't like it. In fact, on page 111 (almost halfway through) Sam asked what I thought so far. When I said I actually liked it, his response was, "I don't think you will all the way through. But we'll see." 

Too bad Sam can't remember specifically what he didn't like about this book. (Sometimes I feel like we're the old man and old lady from The Buried Giant . . . ) This is the story of Junior and Henrietta, a young married couple living on midwestern farmland (which, embarrassingly, in my mind's eye looks exactly like the Kent farm in Smallville; the embarrassment doesn't lie with the fact that I was reminded of the Kent farm, but with the admission that I've watched every episode of that show. Though I guess I didn't have to mention the "every episode" part). Junior and Hen live in a somewhat dystopian future. They own chickens (which is illegal, but who's to know out here in the middle of nowhere?) and, surrounded by corporate canola fields, Junior works at a feed mill rather than cultivating his own land. Life takes a bit of a turn when Terrance shows up with the news that Junior has been randomly selected to temporarily populate The Installment, ostensibly in outer space. Hen will remain behind, and during his absence Junior will be replaced by a not-completely-explained entity who will be an  indistinguishable (even to Hen) replacement. This news, understandably, puts a bit of a strain on their relationship as they each privately deal with the coming changes.

On one hand I don't want to say more about the plot because I want to avoid spoilers; on the other hand I want to talk about the ending, so I'm about to give a huge spoiler. It's unavoidable. I mean, if you want to avoid it, you can. Just stop reading now. But if you've already read the book, I really want to know what you thought of the end. I thought it was totally ambiguous . . . did you? Junior is happy, and Hen is even more so. Is Hen happy because Replacement Junior has come back? Or did the real Hen leave, and it's Replacement Hen who is happy??

“The Storied Life of AJ Fikry” by Gabrielle Zevin

For a long time I have harbored a fantasy of finding a baby in a box. (In my dreams it's a live one. Let's not talk about my nightmares.) Not that anyone finds a baby in a box in this book. But there's a similar sort of dynamic which spoke to that unrealized possibility.

Sam bought this book after reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, because who wouldn't want to read more books by the same author after reading that? (I myself, maybe unsurprisingly, was more attracted to the title Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac; I'll definitely be reading that someday.) Unfortunately Sam was less than impressed by Fikry; I'm willing to bet that's just because TaTaT was that good. How could it compare? But despite the lack of recommendation from Sam I figured I would give it a try. 

AJ Fikry is an old (ish! not really) and somewhat grumpy bookstore owner on Alice Island, off the northeast coast of the US (although, weirdly, the beach and the ocean hardly figure into this book; I think the [made-up] location was only chosen because it is a bit remote and difficult to get to). We first see AJ through the eyes of Amelia "Amy" Loman, a publishing rep from a small press hoping to get him to purchase a significant portion of their winter catalog. At first we don't realize it, but AJ has every right to be gruff since the demise of his beloved wife two years earlier. 

Sam may have been right in that this book isn't as good as TaTaT, but I enjoyed reading it. I mean, it had its flaws, mostly centering around Maya. For one, I could not grasp Maya's voice; she didn't sound like a real child or even a real person. What was supposed to make her sound unique (never using contractions) only served to make her sound like a weird robot. It's like Maya was written by someone who has never met a child, or maybe never even was one. For another, Maya's short story (supposedly nearly award-winning) was terrible. It had a striking final line, but that was the only good thing about it. On the other hand, I loved it on page 86 when Maya figured out that r-e-d spells red, because I remember that moment of realization in my own life (the letters make sounds, and the sounds make words! although I was sounding out "Away We Go" instead of "red"), and I remember the feeling of the world opening up to me. It's definitely a nice thing to be reminded of. And then there's the whole bookish background, with all of the literary references and love of reading. Island Books is the perfect setting for a bibliophile.

Overall, I found this book very satisfying, even if contrived (as when Fikry asked to keep the child, and when Maya reviewed the books in the store) and a bit sentimental. The nostalgic bent saved it for me.

“Romantic Comedy” by Curtis Sittenfeld

This is the kind of book I usually hate. I mean, if I hadn't already read a book of short stories by this author that I really liked, and if this novel hadn't been recommended by [insert entity here that a literary amnesiac can't remember but was probably Oh, Reader magazine], I wouldn't have touched it with a ten-foot pole, no matter how witty and intelligent the main character was. 

I actually bought this book for Sam for his birthday. (Six months ago.) It's not Sam's usual thing either, but he *did* like One Day and The Versions of Us, both of which I would lump into the same category as this one. Aaaaaand yes I was interested in reading it myself after that [unremembered] recommendation. Unfortunately, without the interesting hook of once-a-year updates, or the distinctive alternate universe idea, there must not have been anything in this book for Sam, because . . . he hated it. I don't think he made it more than fifty pages before he gave up. 

I won't say I was undaunted by Sam's reaction, but I still wanted to give it a try. And I'm glad I did, because it turns out I didn't hate it. It definitely wasn't my favorite book ever ever, and I wouldn't recommend it unreservedly, but I did enjoy reading it. So maybe the characters' lives were too different from the average Joe (or Josephine, or me) to seem realistic, but that was actually part of the (vicarious) fun. And somehow the characters, despite their charmed lives, did seem real (which I can only attribute to good writing). 

Oh, right--what's it about? Sally Milz is one of the longer-term writers for the TV comedy show The Night Owls (a super-obvious surrogate for Saturday Night Live). She meets Noah Brewster, who is maybe not the male equivalent for Taylor Swift because apparently she's currently bigger than any worldwide phenomenon has ever been? But Noah is maybe the next tier down, as a talented, beloved, hunky pop star who stereotypically should only be dating models, though actually (actually) he is interested in Sally. And then there's that attraction-repulsion-attraction cycle that keeps you hanging on for more, only it's interspersed with personal assistants and mansions in Topanga Canyon and private jets punctuated by a bit of pandemic caretaking in Kansas City or whatever location is a substitute for bland middle America, and the underlying question is: are they going to live happily ever after? 

The only other thing I can think to say about this book is that it is weirdly, weirdly specific about what life is like when you work for a famous weekly improv comedy show.