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I'm greatly enjoying this book, and looking forward to learning what happens next. (Avoid the TV series. It's terrible.)
The premise that Myfanwy Thomas wakes up with complete amnesia and has to interpret the world through letters she's left herself. (This isn't Memento; she's sorting out a government conspiracy rather than a murder.)
So far, there have been two moments that threw me out of the book. Here's the first. Myfanwy is standing in front of a mirror for the first time, naked.
Hands up if you think this description was written by a woman. Two sentences for her face, a paragraph for her body. Focusing on "how sexy I am" (see also bikini wax) and not "what does my face say about me?" Like, I'd be wondering how old I was. What color my eyes were. Whether I looked like I smiled a lot. The bikini wax would come very low on the list.
Five pages later, our heroine looks at her picture. "Ordinary features, pale, with independent-minded eyebrows." Her driver's license tells her that her hair is brown, her eyes, blue, and she's thirty-one. She hasn't noticed any of these until she looks at the license.
Second, our heroine has called a cab.
It's been established that our heroine is fabulously wealthy. Surely she'd be calling a black cab, whose driver had The Knowledge? (I checked. Yup, author is Australian.) If she did call a minicab, surely it would have GPS?
It's a ripping yarn. I am enjoying it. I am just a picky crankypants.
The premise that Myfanwy Thomas wakes up with complete amnesia and has to interpret the world through letters she's left herself. (This isn't Memento; she's sorting out a government conspiracy rather than a murder.)
So far, there have been two moments that threw me out of the book. Here's the first. Myfanwy is standing in front of a mirror for the first time, naked.
I am nondescript, she thought. Nondescript features with shoulder-length dark hair. Hmm. She opened the robe and looked critically at her body.
Lots of adjectives beginning with the letter S are appropriate here, she thought grimly. Short. Scrawny. Small breasts. Skinned knees (although presumably those were only temporary). She remembered something from the letter and felt along the inside of her left thigh. A small hard scar. From falling out of a tree and impaling this leg at the age of nine, she thought. Her body was not particularly fit-looking but seemed blessedly free of cellulite. Shaved legs. A conservative and recent bikini wax. More bruises had risen to the surface, but they didn't conceal the fact that she was not possessed of an especially sexy body. I think I could do better, she thought. I won't be able to hit the level of Hot, but I might be able to manage Cute. If I have a big enough budget. Or at least some makeup to work with.
Hands up if you think this description was written by a woman. Two sentences for her face, a paragraph for her body. Focusing on "how sexy I am" (see also bikini wax) and not "what does my face say about me?" Like, I'd be wondering how old I was. What color my eyes were. Whether I looked like I smiled a lot. The bikini wax would come very low on the list.
Five pages later, our heroine looks at her picture. "Ordinary features, pale, with independent-minded eyebrows." Her driver's license tells her that her hair is brown, her eyes, blue, and she's thirty-one. She hasn't noticed any of these until she looks at the license.
Second, our heroine has called a cab.
She gave the address to the extremely scruffy driver and was then forced to concede that she didn't know where it was.
...
So you have no idea where this house is? the driver asked. He was elderly and wearing one of those dubious flat caps.
It's been established that our heroine is fabulously wealthy. Surely she'd be calling a black cab, whose driver had The Knowledge? (I checked. Yup, author is Australian.) If she did call a minicab, surely it would have GPS?
It's a ripping yarn. I am enjoying it. I am just a picky crankypants.
