how they met each other

The Mutual Friend by Carter Bays

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: I think I just read the start of Carter Bays's new tv show, and it's going to be great.  Instead of focusing on a group of friends, here he spreads the attention among several New Yorkers who are interconnected in ways they don't even know about.  Most of the characters are in their 20s or 30s and are quite attached to social media, which becomes one of the ways that they find and lose each other.

Is it possible that one too many storylines were included here?  Yes, probably.  I feel like there were a couple that could have been minimized, if not eliminated, without damaging the overall thrust of the book.  However, even those characters added to overall gestalt of the book in a positive way.

Bays has a deft hand with dialogue and scene setting and all the things that go into a successful TV show.  It turns out he's also pretty good with narrative flow, and puts it all together to make a pretty darn good book.

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

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.