Siri, Who Am I? by Sam Tschida was an interesting idea of seeing who you are based on your digital presence. Written from the POV from a woman who has lost her memory, Who Am I builds the puzzle of identity from a very modern perspective. The book was more fluff and social commentary than mystery, or perhaps it's just an indication that I'm much older than the protagonist.

A woman wakes up in the hospital with memory loss. She's got a broken cell phone, a rhinestone tiara, and a Prada dress. Since nothing is physically wrong with her, she is sent on her merry way. (I'm really hopeful that SOMEONE would help her figure out who she is rather than just sending her out the door of the hospital, but I digress.) Using her cell phone, she uses her social media, location, and call history to determine her name (Mia), some of the places she's been, and she starts to figure out what her life is or was before the incident that caused her memory loss. It's fun to see her trying to deduce what happened based on clues and bluff her way into, well, everything. I had to wonder how the rest of us more realistically would've come up with a place to stay, a car to drive, and money to spend. (You'll need to suspend disbelief in the life that she walks into.)

I had sympathy for her in the beginning but Mia was not particularly likeable, This very well could've been swayed by my view of "influencers" and the trend of oversharing and having a life as it's portrayed vs a real life.
Mia is vapid and snarky, confident and on point in her commentary on life. I have to admit that I don't think the influencer lifestyle should be the "thing" that it is but I do recognize the selfies and the need to over-share your life, and I like the introspective approach that Mia takes as she starts learning the truth of who she is. Meeting people through the eyes of Mia as she tries to figure out who she is is entertaining, and the auxiliary characters (especially Max) fit right in.. Seeing Mia through the lives of those she interacts with gave a good perspective.

The footnotes were fun, although a little difficult to follow in the ARC I received.

The second half of the book brings all of the pieces together into a happy ending. While not a solid meal, the book is a tasty snack to while away the time, and I think your enjoyment of it will depend on where you fit in the social whirl of life.

Overall it was entertaining.way to spend some time.

This reminded me of a book I read a few years ago where a teen lost her memory and had to figure out who she was from her phone.

Mia wakes up in the hospital with no clue who she is and her only clues are her social media accounts and apps on her phone. Thankfully the nurses are nice at the hospital and charge up her phone for her. Once she is awake, the hospital boots her out with nowhere to go or any clue as to her identity. You have to suspend disbelief because I can't believe a hospital would do that to someone.

The rest of the book is Mia trying to remember who she is, how she ended up with memory loss, and what she is meant to do in this life.

I thought the book had some really enjoyable parts and some that were just ok. Mia did get on my nerves...how can she wear the same dress for 5 days? I get that she has no money, but there are a few characters that could have loaned her a few bucks to buy a new outfit. I did like that she was appalled once she learned more about her true self and it seems like getting hit on the head and losing her memory maybe wasn't such a bad thing. It was a path of rediscovery for Mia and to perhaps make a better life for herself.

I'd give this book 3 - 3 1/2 stars.

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.

From reading the synopsis I was intrigued about this book. It has an interesting plot that made me want to find out if i would like it. The characters were great , they all had unique personalities and I wouldn't mind a part 2 to this book. Thank you to the publisher for providing me the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Some synopsis: Mia wakes up from a coma dressed up and with a tiara and no memory of who she and everything in life. But yet her phone wasn't damaged in the accident and she starts asking Suri "who am I?" She is then able to open her phone and starts going through her contacts and no luck to her answers. Some people are quite rude to her and she cant remember why they would act like that. A neuroscientist then helps Mia on her journey of discovering who she was before the accident. As Mia gets further into her search she starts to have second thoughts; does she really want to know who was or does she want a do-over?

So all in all the actual plot was great but Mia as a character was a bit annoying. Obviously she is a Millenial and relies way too much on her phone and social media and her characterization was a bit off putting. I get what the author was trying to do by making Mia seem helpless, but there are other resources besides your phone. This book did have many humorous parts which was the saving grace, but just not a favorite read. I did appreciate the light=heartedness of the book. Other readers may like this more than me, maybe I will give this another chance later.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 1/12/21

I just did not enjoy the tone or the character in this book. Perhaps this book would appeal to someone more social media-obsessed, but it just didn't work for me.

I was frustrated this WHOLE book.⁣⁣
First of all, if your phone is all you have left of your identity, 100000% check something besides Instagram. And if your screen is broken but siri is working Turn On Voice Controls!!!!!⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Anyway this book is totally not what I usually read, but it was kinda nuts and fun to read even though the mc was super frustrating and I was not fond of her 🙊 and I felt like some interactions we're super unrealistic which didn't bother me much because it matched the overall vibe of the book⁣⁣. I guess it’s kinda a contemporary mystery-ish? I’m not sure how to explain it well!
I kinda guessed at how things were gonna pan out for our mc but there were still some surprises and it was still a wild ride to the ending!⁣⁣

Mia wakes up from a coma she's been for two days and only discovered her name after asking Siri. Will she be able to found everything about her? Or will she fail trying? For that she will have Max —a handsome black neuroscientist— to help her unravel her past.

I did not liked the way it was written, it might have seemed a good idea but I found myself looking a gazillion times on Google for some terms I did not catch and all that. Also, those side comments weren't helpful, but I won't complain much about them.
The story in the other hand, was very good. A girl waking up to find a fairy tale-kind of life to discover some deep stuff about her... It has some great plot, maybe a little too Millennial, but hey, that's what the story offers.

I enjoyed it very much and, though it was a bit confusing, I recommend it. You will have fun reading it. You will not regret reading it.

When Mia wakes up wearing a Prada dress and tiara - but without her memory - she hopes that her life is the stuff of rich, LA dreams.
Unfortunately, while the revelation about her true life situation was unexpected, her romantic interests lacked chemistry. I also found her preoccupation with social media off-putting, and made me less inclined to root for her.

This is possibly the best lost memory book I have ever read. Filled with irreverent, snarky humor, it was laugh out loud funny without compromising the mystery of the main plotline. After waking up in a hospital wearing a Prada dress and with a head full of staples, Mia has little to rely on to find out who she is and what led her to be attacked. Following the few clues she has, she ends up at a beautiful house that she believes belongs to her boyfriend and is introduced to the adorkable house sitter, Max.
The main character is admittedly flaky and a bit of a ditz, but she seamlessly fits into the LA atmosphere and feels like a natural citizen of a city that prides itself on being image-oriented. Going along with the theme, she heavily relies on her past Instagram posts to extract details on her private versus carefully curated public persona.
This book was fun and lighthearted, exactly the sort of story you can easily lose yourself in when you don't feel like doing any heavy thinking. Max's good and kind qualities are a sweet contrast to Mia's questionable actions, though his eagerness to assist her right off the bat was a tad unbelievable. Still, their burgeoning friendship and openness with one another was a refreshing departure from many of the insta love (or, let's be real, insta lust) stories that currently dominate the romance genre.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy. This had no impact on my review.

Siri, Who Am I? had promise. I think going through a solid editing process to clean up the story, solidify motivations, and completely eliminate the hashtags and footnotes would have done wonders. It reminded me of the first of Alexa Martin's books which is a huge compliment, but anyone who read that book compared to the next she published, know how much she improved. I would expect great things from Sam Tschida's next book.

As for Siri, Who Am I? Without posting spoilers I still don't know why Mia made the ultimate decisions she made. Sure she had amnesia and remained an unreliable narrator (my favorite trope) but I still couldn't connect with her decisions.

I am a huge sucker for any book about a woman getting hit on the head and losing her memory. Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella, and What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty are two of my favorites. This one wasn’t quite as well done, but it was interesting in ways that the other books weren’t. Unlike most books in this genre, Siri Who Am I? had absolutely no characters who knew anything about the head trauma victim to give the reader any clue as to who she might be. The reader stumbles along with Mia, the main character, as she tries to piece together her life. The plot unravels like a mystery instead of chick lit.

There are a lot of very unbelievable situations in this book, particularly toward the end, but on the whole, it’s a great escape. I would recommend this for beach reading if any of us can get to a beach at any point in the future. Or you could read it from your isolation to forget about the news.

What a fabulous concept - "novel" idea. However, it was just executed poorly. It was a bit all over the place and none of the characters were like-able enough. I love a good "fluff" book (Sophie Kinsella!) but this just missed the mark for me. Mia got on my nerves and the cultural references while an integral part of the book, just seemed a bit overkill.

Sadly, this just missed the mark - there's a lot more that could have been done with the idea of an amnesiac using social media (and Siri/Alexa/Echo) to figure out who they were and what they liked. Instead, our amnesiac, Mia, spends too much time drinking coffee and on a sort of caper. Even the Big Reveal about who she is and what she does feels like a letdown.

eARC provided by publisher.

I was really excited for this one after reading the the synopsis but it didn't live up to my expectations. The characters were unlikeable. And the decisions made (or obvious decisions that weren't made) made the characters hard to relate with. I may still recommend, it was a quick read and a light, beach read. .

Decent mystery that kept me guessing. I read the galley version that had some side comments that seemed to be Mia's thoughts, hopefully, these won't make it to the finished version they were fairly distracting. There was also one paragraph in the middle where Mia meets her fiance and she is thinking "I hope he f***s me so hard". This paragraph is fairly incongruous with the rest of the narrative and unneeded. Other than these distractions I enjoyed the novel.

Mia Wallace wakes up in hospital, with no idea who she is or how she gets there. Based on nothing but an Instagram post, she sets out tracing her past and finding her identity. Is she rich? Famous? The clues gleaned from her past posts lead her through interesting parts of California, hobnobbing with both the highest echelons of underwear model and the low rough sleeper. In her search to find her past, she finds her true identity.

This was not a hard-hitting mystery; rather it was a fluffy easy read. The protagonist had all the hallmarks of a rom-com heroine both irritating and entertaining in equal measures, and while the storyline had moments of implausibility that would *only* work in a rom-com universe, it was an entertaining holiday/lockdown read. The story triggered some thought-provoking commentary about our carefully curated online presence and the comparisons with the hot-mess real world.

Well, written, and with realistic dialogue, this story satirizes the culture of the Online Influencer and reminds you that what you see isn't always what you get.

First and foremost, go into this knowing it is a tongue-in-cheek satire. As superficial as the Southern California milieu in which it is set, the book is at turns light and then ascerbic as it skews a lifestyle that is especially familiar to Los Angelenos. As the movie Clueless did with teens in the 1990s, the protagonists in Siri, Who Am I? are silly, self centered, but completely amusing and fun. As such, this makes for a lighthearted and enjoyable Summer read where you don't think too much about it and just go with the flow and let it happen.

Story: Mia wakes up in a hospital, has staples in her head from an accident at a museum opening, is wearing a Prada gown, has a semi broken phone, and little memory of who she is and how she got there. In trying to track down her current address, she ends up at a home in Long Beach - and comes to know the guy house sitting for the extremely wealthy owner. An owner who may or may not be Mia's boyfriend. Together, they begin to track down Mia's life and help her figure out if someone attempted to murder her or she just had a nasty accident.

Most of the story is Mia taking clues from her phone and following up on leads from instragram photos, phone contacts, and messages. Is she the wealthy owner of an elite dating service? Is the hunky French chocolate millionaire her boyfriend? Does she own that yacht in the picture? What is her relationship to the people on her phone: a hostile Crystal, a drug lord with a snake tattoo across his entire chest, and a billionaire underwear model/business owner? There are a LOT of fun characters here and it is as amusing to watch Mia unravel her life as she does house sitter/neuroscientist Max's own home issues. Because Max is having problems with his ex girlfriend and may just be in denial as to why the breakup occurred and why the ex is so bitter about it to the point of sabotaging his life.

Those familiar with Los Angeles will enjoy the locales - riding down the 710, being disgusted over banks sitting on property with great views of the ocean, urine soaked police stations, sun-drenched Starbucks outlets employing barristas hoping to find the perfect wealthy husband while they work, and the underworld of sex, drugs, stripping, and call girls in the seedier parts of the city. Those who don't live in LA will get a great glimpse of the shallower sides, perfectly embodied by the heroine's enjoyment of the Kardashian's TV show.

As an interesting writing quirk, Mia's quippish afterthoughts/musings are footnoted, often giving a rebuttal or zing to points in the book. E.g., when Max learns his ex was faking enjoying sex, Mia will have a footnoted thought along the lines of, "Now I know why Max is making a lie-detector."

In all, it took about 10% into the book before I got the vibe down well enough to begin to really enjoy the ride. I think many people will have a hard time right out of the gate since we have a scene of a hospital forcibly releasing out onto the street a patient with head trauma and no ID or knowledge of herself. It would have been fairly obvious that she has no money and no knowledge of where she lives; therefore nowhere to go. Similarly, the ending may be anticlimactic about who/how of the accident that put her in the hospital but this is a book about the journey, not the beginning or ending (yes, the head injury is a maguffin). It is a very amusing read and I enjoyed as the mystery unfolded as to Mia's identity and her life. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Cute, light, and fluffy! This book is a perfect summer beach read. I loved being able to guess who Mia really was, and the commentary on how social media really shapes our lives.

Siri, Who Am I? by Sam TschidaBook publication date: May 5, 2020

When a young woman wakes up in the hospital with amnesia, she only knows there's a head wound under her very trendy haircut, and that her phone addresses her as both "Mia" and "hello gorgeous." While perusing her phone, she discovers that Mia is the kind of person who does not have her mother's phone number, but does have a massive amount of followers on Instagram.  As she follows her digital footprint around southern California like Sherlock in Chanel lipstick, she uncovers a woman leading a troubled life. Matchmaker, Instagram Influencer, victim of foul play? Who is Mia, really? 

Fans of Alexa Martin's Playbook series may enjoy the hashtagged sass that runs through Mia's brain. However, I think this book has more in common with  California noir than a sunny romance. Mia is a little like Veronica Mars--a shallow, more manipulative Veronica Mars--and her investigation turns up a satisfying amount of grime behind her curated online persona. 

This review is based on an ARC via Netgalley. This review is also available at the Eisenhower Library blog (https://eisenhowerlibrary.org/tag/book-review/ ) and Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3213059133).