Hello and welcome to this week's edition of No Wait Wednesday, where we take a look at a title on our New Release shelves at one of our Libraries that's sitting there, just ready and waiting for a lucky patron to discover it. Today's book is How To Be Remembered by Michael Thompson, a thoughtful, heartwarming debut novel with magical elements that draws comparisons to last years' breakout hit The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab as well as the book group smash The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. A book that both enlightens and entertains, excellent for book groups looking for deep, discussable themes as well as casual readers just looking for a good book. Either way, be sure to get this one on your holds list.
Tommy Llewelyn has a problem. A very unusual problem, as a matter of fact. For every year, as long as he can remember, Tommy's life resets. Meaning that every year on his birthday he wakes up and everyone he has met in the previous year has forgotten everything about him. Friends, family, lovers, teachers, employers, casual acquaintances - all of them have forgotten ever meeting him or knowing anything about him while he still remembers everything. Documents, photos, or any sort of paper that he's accumulated trail simply disappear and are gone forever. It's an odd and terrible sort of magic - every year of Tommy's life, he has to start over completely from scratch. Even though Tommy has (almost) gotten used to it, that doesn't stop him from trying to find out why this happens and to try to discover a way to get out of this unusual and heartbreaking situation. Also, he's trying to reconnect to a girl he fell in love with during his stay at an orphanage, Carey, who is his constant north star, and the dream of reconnecting with the love of his life sustains him through all of his difficulties. He's hoping against hope that they'll meet again, and that this time, she'll remember him.
Even though the setup for this novel sounds utterly horrifying, this is a story of human resilience, as Tommy keeps his idealism alive through all the difficulties that this unusual life throws at him. This is a story of a boy - and then a man - who is desperate to be acknowledged and remembered by the universe, but instead, he evolves, comes to terms with his situation, and somehow uses it to find the ending - and the legacy - that he wants. Readers who love time slip novels that rely on deep characterization and fulfilling life lessons will snap this up as well as those book groups that we mentioned earlier that are hungry for readable novels with deeper themes.
Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next week! Be sure to click on the NoWaitWednesday tag on our Staff Picks blog to look at some previous picks and to find great books that don't have tons of holds on them.