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Siri, Who Am I?
Click for more information  Ebook
2021
First Chapter or Excerpt
Chapter One It seems as though I'm the kind of person who lands in the hospital in a cocktail dress on a Tuesday night with no ID and no friends. The doctor says I've been in a mild coma for the last two days like Peter Gallagher in While You Were Sleeping , a movie I seem to remember every word of. As for my name? No clue. All I know is that I hate my hair. Maybe it's just coma hair (medical-grade bedhead), but still. You'd think they would have washed out the blood, not to mention a crust that feels like bridesmaid-level product build-up, but Brenda the day-shift nurse explains, "This ain't a spa, honey. We only do blowouts on doctor's orders." And then she laughs. When she hands me an oversize cup of water a minute later, she looks at my hair like it's the first time she's noticed it and says, "You know, it's actually cute." Just being nice, I think. Either that or she has no taste. I can't judge because I've only seen her in scrubs. The doctors say that, amnesia aside, I'm mostly fine, but that doesn't seem true. I definitely feel like I almost died. I mean, I didn't see any of my dead relatives welcoming me to the other side but that proves nothing; if I can't remember who I am, I probably wouldn't recognize them either. That's probably what happened--God sent Uncle So-and-So to pick me up and I just assumed he was a perv and missed the ride to heaven. Though circumstantial, the evidence of my attempted murder is highly convincing: * Blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. (Let's hope that's why my hair looks bad. * Cocktail dress. (This should factor in, I think.) * Blood alcohol of . . . I don't know what the numbers mean, but mostly Grey Goose. Funny how I know what I drink, even if I don't know where I live. #priorities. * Someone (anon.) called an ambulance for me but didn't wait around to hold my hand on the ride in. I'm just going to assume someone tried to kill me. That's what it feels like. Eight out of ten on the pain scale with a side of abandonment. If I find out I just slipped and did this to myself, I'm going to be really disappointed. Halfway through Keeping Up with the Kardashians , which I've been binge-watching on the small TV in my hospital room ever since I woke up, my medical team walks in. They all smell like Purell, even though current research tells me they're probably mostly spreading germs. Bad hair won't be my only problem if I don't get out of this place soon. And I'm pretty sure I'm not even a germophobe. I have a feeling that I'm really well-adjusted. Who the fuck knows, though. What does well- adjusted even mean? I might as well say that I love all kinds of music, even country. But no one loves country. Brenda, who ordered me a special gluten-free, vegetarian meal because I "just look like a vegetarian, honey," explains the facts to the neurologist, Dr. Patel. He'd be attractive if he didn't look so much like a neurologist. If Queer Eye ever got their hands on him, they'd get rid of his rumpled, secondhand clothes and truss him up in a sexy, fuchsia shirt and slim-fit pants in his actual size. (You are not a 34-inch waist, Dr. Patel.) "The patient can't seem to remember her name," Brenda says. Kim, Khloé, Kourtney, Kris, Caitlyn, Kanye, Kendall, Kylie, and all the assorted babies . . . I know all of their names. But who the hell am I? The neurologist interrupts Kim, who's talking about permanent lip liner with zero expression on her face. "How are you doing?" Why can't I tune Kim out? It's like my brain is hardwired to focus on her. Because she's pretty? Because her problems are dumber and therefore less stressful than mine? Because of her butt? "I seem to be having trouble focusing," I say to Dr. Patel. "I don't know if that's normal for me." Patel finally looks up from my chart. "Time will tell. Before I explain your test results, do you mind if I do a physical examination of your head?" I might not have all of my memories, but I have a feeling I've been asked that before. "As for the physical trauma," he says, "MRI and CT are negative for signs of intracranial bleeding. The swelling in your brain must be going down, which is why you woke up. The headache probably won't go away for at least a week." "How about my memory?" "Your memory--" He stops for a second to look at an incoming text on his phone. "You have what's known as traumatic amnesia, which means your memories will likely come back to you as your injuries heal. But there's no telling when-- and you might struggle for quite some time." The light-headed feeling hits again and my peripheral vision starts to blur, but I lean back and shut my eyes. No passing out . "For now, I think you should try to reconstruct your life as best as you can. If you can get back into some old routines, you will increase your chances of remembering. Once you get home, surround yourself with familiar faces, go back to work--you might begin to remember things." Home. Routines. Wasn't he listening? I don't even know my own name or who cuts my hair. "Girl, you gotta cheer up," my nurse, Brenda, says. "I have good news." "Tell me it's a cure." Or an invitation to live on her couch. I'll take either. "Definitely better than anything the doctors are gonna do for you." She looks up, waiting for my full attention. "Go on." "Well, I still suspect you're a vegetarian, so you've got that to deal with--" "How do you know?" With a shake of her head and a If you have to ask, you'll never understand look , she says, "I charged your phone. The intake nurse thought it was broken but I gave it a little check-up. It's cracked, but it works." She holds it out to me. An iPhone, cracked to hell and splintered. I won't be able to click on anything in the upper third of the screen, but only my banking and weather apps are up there. The important stuff is all at the bottom, within thumb's reach. My desktop background is a picture of myself. I've got good hair in it, at least. Gwen Stefani blond, all sirens-of- the-silver-screen glamour on one side and a buzz cut on the other, but salon quality; it doesn't have that I buzzed it myself in a dimly lit bathroom vibe --I don't think. I hold out the phone to Brenda. "Does this hairstyle seem like a weird choice to you, or is it just me?" Brenda lets out a startled laugh. "Little weird. Can't say I'm surprised." "Whatever, Brenda. You love me." She raises an eyebrow. "And you love quinoa." "Take me out to lunch and we'll find out." I look at the screen. It's a lifeline to all of my friends and family--everything that matters. I mean, it's one thing to lose your memory but another thing altogether to lose your phone. Email, texts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram . . . Does it even matter that my memories aren't in my brain? Everything that counts is on my phone. Hard data and digital evidence. Including my name . . . Excerpted from Siri, Who Am I?: A Novel by Sam Tschida All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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Trade Reviews
Publishers Weekly Review
Tschida's breezy rom-com debut sees a woman with amnesia trying to piece together her identity with only her Instagram account as a guide. When Mia Wallace wakes up in an L.A. hospital, she has a phone and a designer party dress but no memory of who she is. She follows clues on her social media to a mansion she assumes is her house, only to be met by a cute, bewildered housesitter named Max who has never heard of her. Max agrees to help, and the pair crisscross the city following leads about her life. Max proves the perfect confidant and the bond they form as Mia rediscovers herself is more real to her than any of the alarming things she learns about her past. But as more unsavory facts about Mia's life come to light, she has to figure out how to set the new Mia on a better course than the woman she used to be. Mia's narrative voice--punctuated with hashtags, chat-speak, and humorous footnotes--won't be for everyone, but the mystery of her identity is fun and satisfying. This entertaining romance puts a cute twist on the genre. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary. (May)
Booklist Review
Mia wakes up in the hospital, bruised and beaten, with no memory of how she got there or who she is. Her phone quickly points her to her Instagram account, where she's delighted to learn that she's an influential and, very possibly, rich woman with a hot boyfriend. Still wearing the Prada dress she had on when she landed in the hospital, Mia uses her old social media posts to locate what she hopes is her house. It turns out to be the house of the hot boyfriend, owner of a chocolate empire, currently occupied by a house sitter, Max, who's kind of cute himself. Setting out with just her phone for clues, Mia and Max work to piece her life back together, hot on the trail of who put her in the hospital, and why. The mystery takes a back seat to the fun ride, but readers may just be left thinking about how social media alters our perceptions of one another and ourselves. Tschida's debut is a millennial Bridget Jones Diary meets Legally Blonde.
Kirkus Review
A young woman with amnesia must use social media to figure out who she is in this quirky mystery. Mia wakes up in an LA hospital dressed in Prada and a tiara with a massive head wound and no idea who she is. The trauma of the injury has caused amnesia, and the doctor says time in familiar surroundings will help her remember. Unfortunately, the only reason she even knows her own name is because of her phone. Having retained a wide knowledge of pop culture and Twitter muscle memory but no clue about herself, she takes to her social media profiles to discover who she is. An Instagram photo of a house with the hashtag #homesweethome leads her to think she might be on the right track. Upon entering the house, however, she meets Max, a grad student who says he's housesitting for a French billionaire, not Mia. With Max at her side, Mia attempts to figure out what exactly is going on before she runs out of money or the true owner of the house comes back. Tschida's debut shines in its prose, maintaining a light, chatty tone as Mia narrates her struggles, complete with footnotes when appropriate. Despite not knowing who she is, Mia has a strong personality that will endear her to the reader, who will worry for her as the plot twists and turns. The dynamic between Mia and Max is playful and fun, keeping the mood light even when things start getting darker. Tschida's a deft hand at characterization and dialogue; characters jump off the page and interact in interesting ways. The mystery isn't easily solved, and the journey to the solution is clever and enjoyable. A strong debut that's fun and funny, perfect for lovers of modern romantic comedies and light mysteries. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Summary
"A wild ride. . . with endless turns and a happily-ever-after ending fit for a Friday night, feel-good rom-com movie."-- USA Today

A Millennial with amnesia uses her Instagram account to piece together her identity in this hilarious and whip-smart comedy about the ups and downs of influencer culture.

Mia might look like a Millennial but she was born yesterday. Emerging from a coma with short-term amnesia after an accident, Mia can't remember her own name until the Siri assistant on her iPhone provides it. Based on her cool hairstyle (undercut with glamorous waves), dress (Prada), and signature lipstick (Chanel), she senses she's wealthy, but the only way to know for sure is to retrace her steps once she leaves the hospital. Using Instagram and Uber, she arrives at the pink duplex she calls home in her posts but finds Max, a cute, off-duty postdoc supplementing his income with a house-sitting gig. He tells her the house belongs to JP, a billionaire with a chocolate empire. A few texts later, JP confirms her wildest dreams: they're in love, Mia is living the good life, and he'll be back that weekend.

But as Mia and Max work backward through her Instagram and across Los Angeles to learn more about her, they discover an ugly truth behind her perfect Instagram feed, and evidence that her head wound was no accident. Did Mia have it coming? And if so, is it too late for her to rewrite her story?
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