Remember Me?
by Sophie Kinsella
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Book Reviews of Remember Me?
Book Review: From S. Krishna's Books
Summary: 4 Stars
What happens if you wake up one morning and realize that all of your dreams have magically come true overnight? That's what happens to Lexi Smart. She wakes up in a hospital one to find that she doesn't recognize herself - literally. The frizzy hair is gone, replaced by a sleek, shiny mane, and the lifelong nickname "Snaggletooth" just doesn't apply anymore...and why do her lips look suspiciously plumper? She doesn't even believe the Louis Vuitton handbag that the nurse hands her is actually hers. Why? Because Lexi has no memory of the past three years. In her mind, she's a struggling assistant manager at a flooring company who just had a typical crazy night out with her girlfriends in 2004. In reality, she's actually a member of the Board of Directors of that flooring company and is waking up from a minor car accident in 2007.
Lexi finds that she has everything she has ever wanted: she is beautiful, married to a ridiculously good-looking guy, makes a lot of money, and lives in the most beautiful loft she has ever seen. So what if everyone at the office not-so-secretly wishes she hadn't recovered from the car accident? And so what if her oldest friends don't want anything to do with her anymore? And does it really matter if her new husband scolds her like a child for not putting her shoes away properly? Remember Me? is the tale of Lexi's quest to discover what happened to her during those three years to turn her into a person whom she doesn't physically or emotionally recognize, and what she does when she finds out that her new life may not be as picture perfect as it seems.
Remember Me? is funny, witty, and absolutely charming; it is perhaps Kinsella's best work yet. The characters are extremely well written and appealing. Like all of Kinsella's protagonists, Lexi is quirky and a bit off-center. What makes this book fresh and unique, however, is that when she wakes, Lexi is the woman that every chick lit heroine loves to hate: sleek and polished, beautiful, refined, and very unpleasant in the workplace. It's interesting to see what Kinsella does with that role reversal, how the reader sympathizes with the snooty boss in charge instead of condemning her. The most interesting parts of the book come when Lexi is trying to discover what drove her to this complete personality change. She looks at what her husband and friends demonstrate that her life has become and searches for some fragment of the Lexi she knows within it.
Ironically, it is not with her husband that Lexi finds remnants of the woman she used to be, but with his architect partner, Jon. Jon delivers startling news to her soon after their first meeting and, unsure of whether to trust him, she holds him at arm's length while trying to decipher the puzzle of the last three years.
Remember Me? is a fresh look at what might happen if that fairy-tale wish comes true: "I wish I could wake up to find a new me, someone completely different than I am now." Its hilarious situations and witty humor make it a real force to be reckoned with in the chick-lit genre. The fact that it comes with some definite introspection makes it that much better. It is an absolutely enjoyable experience; readers will race through the pages to find out what happens to Lexi as they try to discover the secrets of her past together. Kinsella has really outdone herself with this work. Any fan of chick lit should pick this up immediately.
Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book
Book Review: THE 1ST THING I THOUGHT WAS - THIS COULD BE ME!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The idea behind this book is thought provoking - Ladies, what would you do if you suddenly woke up in the hospital to find out that not only have you no memory of the last three years of your life, but that everything that you do remember has completely changed? This would include your appearance (for the Better!), your career (you've been Promoted!), your love life (You're Married!! & to a really good-looking guy), your lifestyle (Fantastic! Your husband is rich and you make three times as much as you used to) and that your social life has changed too. Well, maybe not everything new is better - you seem to have all new friends but your old friends; the one's that matter the most to you act like you don't even exist. This is the case of Lexi Smart - a young woman who has the misfortune (or would that be fortune?) to suffer a brain injury after falling down a set of steps.
Sophie Kinsella is a masterful story teller; she mixes real life with just enough drama to carry you along and helps you invest in her characters. She takes Lexi from an average "any woman" to an ambitious, super styler who now has the sleek body of an athlete and makes us all wish that we could be her; then Sophie switches it up and we discover that there are cracks in the perfect exterior and that not everything is picture perfect.
The story gets even more involved when we find out that Lexi's last memory is indeed from three years earlier, but that the reason she's in the hospital is because of a very recent car accident. Somehow her brain injury jumps her memory back three years and it was during those three years that she consciously made all the changes in her life. She just doesn't remember how or why. She decides to jump right in, thinking that if she plays along, hopefully her memory will return. So she moves in with her gorgeous husband, makes plans to visit her job and see her friends. She just can't understand why she's no longer tight with the girls at work that she used to always hang out with. She even meets a man that seems to know her more than he should and before long, the sparks begin to fly!
Readers are treated to a mystery as Lexi takes on the task of discovering who she is and what is really important to her - she learns just what events sparked the tremendous changes in her life and as she gets to know herself, she discovers who she really wants to be. We ride along with Lexi as she takes on challenges and wonder if she'll ever regain her memory and if or when she does, how will it change her life?
As a personal aside, after reading this book description, I actually gasped! This is ME! Well No, not really but this book really meant something to me personally, as I too, woke up in the hospital after a bump to the head after falling down the stairs and I had no recollection of it either - my life hadn't changed much - except I did lose almost 10 pounds (feeding tubes are great - there's practically no fat pumped in there!) Fortunately, all my important memories are still intact, but it was so intriguing to me when I saw the description of this book that I just had to read it and I'm so glad that I did! Everyone can enjoy this tale; even if you haven't found yourself in Lexi's shoes (or mine!) because the story speaks to everyone about the perils of wanting "the good life" and what can happen as you discover that maybe, just maybe what you really want isn't "the good life" at all!
Book Review: Even better than the Shopaholic Books!
Summary: 4 Stars
REMEMBER ME? by Sophie Kinsella
April 19, 2008
Rating **** (4/5 Stars)
Having only read the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella, I wasn't sure if one of her standalones would be worth reading. However, REMEMBER ME? was a very delightful book, and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.
The story starts with the main character, Lexi Smart, having drinks with friends in a bar. As they leave the place, she falls and hits her head. When she awakens, she finds herself in hospital and is told it's now three years later. She is very confused. She is told she has lost her memory and all that had happened to her in the last three years is not even a memory. The last thing she can remember happening was having drinks with her best friends Carolyn, Debs, and Fi. As far as she knows, she was slightly over weight, and was called Snaggletooth by loved ones because of her crooked teeth. But, looking at herself now, she discovers she has really nice manicured nails, her hair has been nicely done, and she's got very expensive clothes and a designer handbag. Plus, she's lost a lot of weight. Furthermore, she's no longer snaggletooth. Her teeth have been straightened out! And, she's no longer single, but married to a very wealthy man. What the hell happened?
REMEMBER ME is Lexi's journey as she tries to put together the puzzle of the last three years of her life. She cannot understand how she had changed so much, and why she married a very wealthy man who doesn't seem to be a good fit for her, at least for the old Lexi Smart. She has new best friends, her new job is that of the head of the department she used to work for (Flooring), and lives in a very wealthy home in a very wealthy neighborhood. And, she's been told, she was on television. It's a hilarious adventure as Lexi finds out slowly exactly what her life is like now. But the fun of the book is discovering what happened to her to bring her to this new life. It's almost like reading a whodunit, with Lexi being the person who has to find out.
Part of the fun was Lexi rediscovering her old friends, women who now would have nothing to do with her. Because the reader was introduced to her character before her memory loss, we are with her all the way as she goes on a search for her past life. The reader will also enjoy putting the pieces together, never a step ahead of Lexi, which makes her self-discovery as much of a surprise to the reader as it is to Lexi. The introduction to a business partner of her husband, Jon, holds the key to who Lexi really is, causing Lexi to struggle with who she knows she is deep inside. But she is having a hard time reaching that person she used to be.
REMEMBER ME ? was a very fun read, reminiscent of the Shopaholic books, but the main character is not as aggravating and annoying as I know many readers found Becky Bloomwood, the Shopaholic. Lexi is a lot smarter than Becky, as is shown from her track record from being just another flunky in flooring, to becoming a director who had saved the company from ruin. REMEMBER ME? is Lexi's quest to find her real self, to try to remember who she was and where she came from, and where she should be going, whether it be with her new wonderful husband Eric, or someone else entirely. - Courtesy of Love Romances and More - M. Lofton
Book Review: I Wouldn't Want to Remember Her Either...
Summary: 4 Stars
Sophie Kinsella's Remember Me? reveals how changes to one's life can be bad, as well as good. The novel centers on a young businesswoman, Lexi Smart, who wakes up in a hospital after a car accident and cannot remember the last three years of her life. The last thing she remembers is that it is 2004 and she was out with friends at a local bar the night before her father's funeral, having fun before she fell down a set of stairs.
***Spoiler Alert***
Lexi wakes up and her mom is the same she ever was, but her sister has grown up into a teenager. Lexi cannot believe her eyes; her little sister has grown up and is a sarcastic, budding criminal. She also finds out that she is married to a hot stud, who happens to be a millionaire and knows how to drive a speedboat. This part of the description cracked me up. Why would it matter if he can drive a speedboat, but I guess it does to Lexi who is obsessed with all things material. She also discovers that she is now the director of her department and is a total B**ch boss who has lost all of her friends, including those she remembers from the night at the bar in 2004.
She struggles to remember any part of the last three years, including her time on a reality television show, much like the Apprentice. But she cannot remember a thing. To help Lexi out, her hot husband, Eric, gives her a "marriage manual." The manual spells out how often they have sex, how they have sex, how she greets him, how they say goodbye in the mornings, how they initiate foreplay, etc. It is a step-by-step process to their relationship and marriage. A bit overwhelming for a woman with amnesia, but beyond that the manual makes their marriage seem more like a business transaction.
Throughout her re-acclimation to her "new" life, Lexi learns that she also was having an affair with Eric's business partner and architect, Jon. Jon, who claims that they are in love and were on the verge of telling Eric, cannot believe that she does not remember him. Moreover, Lexi must return to a job that she does not feel comfortable performing and cannot imagine ever being capable of performing. Worse yet, her subordinate, Byron, is after her job and wastes no time putting her down when she returns from the hospital.
Despite her best efforts to save her job and her marriage, Lexi fails to save her department, but in the process finds her inner businesswoman and learns how to be independent and self-sufficient without injuring her friends. The part that is the most accurate in the book is that she fails to fully regain her memory by the end of the book, though there is a glimmer of hope.
***End Spoiler Alert***
I thoroughly enjoyed this journey with Lexi Smart. She may have changed her life in the three years she cannot remember, but she changes the most in those months following her car accident more profoundly than she did after her father's death.
I'm not sure I would want to remember myself if I had changed so utterly in those three missing years. There is a significant disconnect between the woman she was in 2004 and the woman she became into 2007.
Book Review: Kinsella clearly has another hit on her hands
Summary: 4 Stars
First off, I have to admit that I've never read any books in Sophie Kinsella's bestselling Shopaholic series. So I dove into REMEMBER ME? with a completely fresh and somewhat curious attitude. Would it live up to the popular hype of that series? I must report, much to my surprise, that I couldn't put it down. It's fun, funny and told in a Bridget Jones-esque slang that, I suppose, Kinsella has polished to a brilliant sheen and made very much her own. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying this novel.
REMEMBER ME? concerns Lexi Smart, who, when we first meet her, is 25, working at a carpet retailer, having trouble with guys like Loser Dave (that should give you a heads-up on her romantic prospects), going to dingy clubs with her mates and getting wasted for lack of anything else to do. After a car accident, Lexi wakes up to find herself 28 and fabulous. She is the director of the sales department at her previously dead-end job, is gorgeous (even her British smile has been evened out and whitened, to what would be a considerable expense), has a Louis Vuitton purse with marching wallet (again, big expense) --- and she's thin!
Imagine waking up to a new and improved you and not having any idea how you got there. Then add in a super-rich and dashing husband you don't remember marrying, and secrets and schemes that show up the dark side of your seemingly perfect existence, and you have the basic makings of a really fun and fast read.
Kinsella's eye for detail wavers a bit thin, depending on the readers' knowledge of top posh brands to drive home her points about living large in the big city. However, it is her ability to weave little secrets into the plot line, enlivening it when you've gotten sick of the crass commercialism that Lexi is so inundated with, that makes REMEMBER ME? such a memorable novel. It's the perfect book to be turned into a film. I can imagine Ben Chaplin as the handsome but businesslike Eric, the husband she didn't know she had; Colin Firth as the dashing architect who unleashes a new worldview on Lexi; and perhaps the delightful Emily Mortimer or hilarious Emily Blunt as the Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole Lexi, trying to figure it all out.
Lexi's journey is a rollercoaster ride of revealed secrets and behind-the-scenes intrigue, and Kinsella aptly describes Lexi's problems with her memory with interesting details that help the reader stay in touch with Lexi's emotional turmoil. The British slang, for you Anglophiles out there, is deliriously funny, and the supporting characters --- from Lexi's punk princess sister to her outdated mum and even her rake of a dad (seen only via videotape taken before he died three years earlier) --- fill in the missing pieces of Lexi's true self very nicely.
Kinsella clearly has another hit on her hands with REMEMBER ME? And now I'm off to find myself some Shopaholic titles before the film version comes out. I hope I like that series as much as I enjoyed this book!
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano