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.

narrative by implication

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Challenge: 100 Book Challenge 2011
Review: There is a lot of sex in the beginning of this book, most of it witnessed, which is good (or at least better than the alternative) since the main character, Elly, is a young girl.  Other sex is implied, making it difficult to know what actually happened.  I found this to be a very frustrating way of story-telling, since so much of Elly's character is supposedly shaped by this implied sex.  This is not the only piece of the story that is told through implication.  Elly's relationship with another character takes on importance in adulthood that is does not seem justified by what is revealed to the reader in her childhood.  I almost felt as though a critical scene has been edited out of the book which would explain how Elly came to be so close to this character later in life.  In the end, this book required too much guesswork for me.

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