Book Review: Sia by Josh Grayson

(I received this book to review from NetGalley.)

Description from Good Reads
When seventeen-year-old Sia wakes up on a park bench, she has no idea who or where she is. Yet after a week of being homeless, she’s reunited with her family. At school, she’s powerful and popular. At home, she’s wealthy beyond her dreams. But she quickly realizes her perfect life is a lie. Her family is falling apart and her friends are snobby, cruel and plastic. Worse yet, she discovers she was the cruelest one. Mortified by her past, she embarks on a journey of redemption and falls for Kyle, the “geek” she once tormented. Yet all the time she wonders if, when her memories return, she’ll become the bully she was before…and if she’ll lose Kyle.


My Review
This book hooked me instantly. I loved the way it started out- Sia, a high school senior, doesn't know who she is. She was probably jogging (based on her attire being work out clothes), and she just doesn't have any clue.
She lives homeless for a week. This seems a little implausible, because we find out later her parents are extremely wealthy, and surely they would have been looking for her? But I suspended my disbelief. It continued to hook me after she went home, and you find out she's this super wealthy girl, daughter of a Hollywood producer, super popular... she has it all.

But she cannot remember anything. She has developed fugue amnesia, and doesn't remember anyone or her life previous. She quickly finds out that yes, she was popular, but people were scared of her and that she wasn't a very nice person.
But the Sia we get to know is a super nice, respectful girl.


When I started to get un-hooked was about the same time we find out Sia's mother is an alcoholic, and she gets her to go to rehab with basically one sentence. And when we find out her parent's are basically going to be bankrupt... but her mom threw over $200.00 at her for lunch.
Little things like this in a book completely take me out of it.

I can let little things go. But so many things just made me say "but ... how?!"
And when she finally gets her memory back, it's only with a few pages to go, and there's really nothing that happens- she remains her new sweet self, has the new boy of her dreams who she would never have looked twice at before, and everyone is super forgiving of her, and her old self, and seems to think this Sia is the new Sia. And I'm not saying she wouldn't be, but I feel like if she was really that awful of a person before, there's a lot more that she would go through emotionally once she gets her memory back- not just a flood and then BAM! She's over it!


I did like the character of Carol, the homeless woman that takes Sia under her wing after she is assaulted by a pimp (this also bothered me- she knew better than to get in the car, but did it anyway? WHAT?!). I would read a book about Carol a thousand times before I think I would read this again.


I gave this book three stars on Good Reads. I did enjoy some parts of it- like when Sia helped Kyle (the boy she never looked at twice before) get donations for earthquake relief.
But overall, there's a lot about it that I just wasn't super impressed with.



This book will be published on November 20th, 2013.


FTC: I received this book to review from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.