The Relentless Reader

Love Water Memory by Jennie Shortridge

Publication Date: January 14, 2014 (Paperback)

Description:

A bittersweet masterpiece filled with longing and hope, Jennie Shortridge’s emotional novel explores the raw, tender complexities of relationships and personal identity.

Who is Lucie Walker? Even Lucie herself can’t answer that question after she comes to, confused and up to her knees in the chilly San Francisco Bay. Back home in Seattle, she adjusts to life with amnesia, growing unsettled by the clues she finds to the selfish, carefully guarded person she used to be. Will she ever fall in love with her handsome, kindhearted fiancé, Grady? Can he devote himself to the vulnerable, easygoing Lucie 2.0, who is so unlike her controlling former self? When Lucie learns that Grady has been hiding some very painful secrets that could change the course of their relationship, she musters the courage to search for the shocking, long-repressed childhood memories that will finally set her free.

My Thoughts:

Amnesia!?! Normally I’d roll my eyes and consider memory-loss a soap-opera like plot device. Not this time around, folks! In Love Water Memory it worked. There was a realism that other stories of this type are missing.

Do you remember the short lived comedy, Samantha Who? This book reminded me of that series, only with a more serious tone. Girl loses memory. Girl wakes up. Girl has a drastically different personality than the one she had before the memory loss.

I’m not one to dig for themes in the books I read. But the theme of this book knocked me over the head a time or two: Fresh starts! New beginnings! What a great book to read at the beginning of a very new year.

If you’re in the mood for a book that will make you think (about your relationships, your choices, your personality) you can’t go wrong with Love Water Memory.

Jennie Shortridge

Shut up. I’m reading.

This was my first full calendar year of blogging. (Yay!)

This was also the very first time I kept track of the books I read for an entire year. (Can I tell you how much I wish I had been doing so for my entire life? A lot.)

My 2013 was jam-packed with over 200 books. (207, to be exact) I always knew I read a lot. I didn’t know that I read that much. I knew I could cram some pages. I had no idea I would cram over 63,000 of them into my brain.

2013 was supposed to be the year of NO challenges. I caved and signed up for one in the very beginning of the year. It was a giant flaming fail. I’m learning about my limitations as a reader/blogger. Pressure isn’t my friend. If I sign up for anything in 2014 it’s going to be for something that I know I’ll already be accomplishing. (Does that smack of writing something on a to-do list after you’ve done it just so you can cross it off? So be it!) Also, I’m going to work on my own shelves and stay away from Netgalley for a while.

I kept track of my books here: