fun but ridiculous

Siri, Who Am I? by Sam Tschida
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: Mia wakes up in the hospital with a head wound, amnesia, and no ID of any kind.  She only learns her name because Siri tells her.  But, having woken up, and there being nothing "medically wrong" with her, her doctors discharge her.  She figure out where she lives by "triangulating" from the backgrounds of her Instagram posts, and fortunately the key in her clutch fits in the lock of the place she winds up, which turns out to be her boyfriend's place, which is being house-sat by a very cute neuroscientist.  Ready for a deep breath, yet?  What follows is a somewhat madcap adventure, suitable for the Pink Panther, except that Inspector Clouseau (as portrayed by either Petter Sellers or Steve Martin) is both smarter and more endearing) than Mia.

Watching Mia try to figure out her life, and who caused her head injury is quite a page-turner.  Mia's voice is very real, as the author has abandoned many writing conventions for a very colloquial tone.  It works, though.  Mia's discomfort as glimpses of who she was before amnesia also feel very authentic.

What doesn't work is the actual plot.  In the interests of not giving away any spoilers, I can't reveal most of the actual problems, although they definitely start with Mia being released from the hospital before she even knows her own last name, but suffice it to say that a lot of Mia's conclusions are leaps, and a lot of things don't hang together even after she figures everything out.  If you can move beyond those issues, this is a fun read, and presents some thoughtful questions about how much of identity is immutable.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

something's very strange here

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: Ines Murillo is a first-year at Catherine House, a prestigious but unusual college tucked deep in the woods of Pennsylvania.  The admissions process is extremely selective, and both rigorous and demanding.  It's entirely unclear what they're looking for, beyond intelligence, but fortunately for Ines, she has whatever it is, since the world outside suddenly seems like something from which she has to escape.  Once she gets there, though, she seems intent on continuing with the debauchery that got her into trouble in the first place.  She sleeps around, drinks too much (to be fair, wine seems to flow freely at all times), and skips class.  Can anything convince her to turn things around?  And what's really going on at Catherine anyway?

Reading the blurb for this book, which describes a secretive school that graduates powerful people, immediately made me think of that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the fraternity whose members got their power from a demon in their basement to whom they had to offer human sacrifices.  So, here's a spoiler: there's no demon in the basement of Catherine House.  What there is, isn't quite clear.  It has something to do with a "new material" called "plasm" which, if I understood correctly somehow allows all things to be connected.  The science behind it wasn't all that important to me.

Rather than the specifics of what's going on in the lab, this book is anchored by the atmosphere of the school.  Full of lush descriptions of damp rooms with peeling wallpaper and mismatched furniture and meals made of strange combinations of food, the sense of something a step beyond shabby gentility emerges.  Add to that some students who are, shall we say, very focused on plasm, and one gets a decidedly gothic feel.

For readers who enjoy a sense of nervous dread about what happens on the next page, this book will pull you to the end, while you nervously look over your shoulder.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

what lies beneath

Alice's Tulips by Sandra Dallas
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Read 20 in 2020 category: published in 2000 (or history)
Review: Midway through the Civil War, Alice has been living for a year with her new husband and his mother on their small farm in Iowa, when her husband hears the call of patriotism and joins the Union Army.  Alice left the more genteel circumstances she grew up in to marry Charlie, and it does appear to be true love, as they're quite happy together.  He leaves Alice with his mother, a woman of very strong opinions, and the hired man to do the heavy lifting on the farm.  This seems somewhat problematic at first, as Alice's only apparent talents are quilting and flirting (which puts her one up on Scarlett O'Hara).

As the circumstances get tougher, Alice soon finds that she has more skills than she thought she did, including loyalty and the ability to work hard.  In this book, Sandra Dallas has mastered the art of showing the reader how a character develops, rather than simply saying so.  Told in the form of letters Alice writes to her sister, the reader can almost feel Alice developing both muscles and a backbone as she faces both day-to-day and rather more extraordinary challenges.

not all adults here

All Adults Here by Emma Straub
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: Some books are enjoyed because of plot, some because of characters, others because of the tone or style of the language.  One might recommend this book for the plot, which moves along, or possibly even the style, which is engaging, but probably not for the characters, most of whom seem more to become fully colored in, more than they grow throughout the book.

But there are plot points aplenty.  The book nominally centers around the matriarch of the family, who has a stunning revelation to share with her three grown children.  Her middle child, and only daughter, has a very different revelation of her own, and her eldest son is struggling with a weighty decision.  Her granddaughter is struggling with a new school, and the reason she left her old school.  There's more than enough here to keep us turning the pages.

My biggest issue with this book is the fact that they are not, in fact, all adults.  The most compelling parts of this book come from children.  Eighth graders, to be specific, as they navigate the difference between secrecy and loyalty, and what it means to really be someone's friend.  It is these parts of the book that had the most meat to them.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.