Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Publishes
Jun 18, 2024
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Paperback Original.
Publication Information
If you could rewrite your life story, would you dare? That's the question at the heart of this charming and propulsive debut novel about love, life, and a woman finding herself and what it means to be happy and successful.
Do you ever feel like your life doesn't measure up to everyone else's—and wonder if you just didn't get the memo helping you make the right choices?
Jenny Green dreads her upcoming college reunion. Once top of her class, the thirty-five-year-old finds herself stuck in a life that isn't the one she expected. Her promising career has flamed out (literally) and her deadbeat boyfriend is cheating on her (again). All her friends seem to have it all figured it out, enjoying glittering lives and careers that she can only envy from the sidelines. Did she just not get the memo they all did?
As it turns out, she didn't!
When she arrives at her alma mater for the festivities, she receives a text from an unlisted number.
"Jenny Green: please collect your memo."
Somewhere on campus, a discreet female-led organization provides comprehensive memos to select students, a set of instructions that are a blueprint for success.
The first time around, Jenny didn't receive hers. Now, she's being given the second chance she wants—an opportunity to relive her life and make all the right decisions this time around. But at what price?
Smart, addictive, bittersweet, and ultimately triumphant, The Memo will enchant readers of In Five Years and Cassandra in Reverse as well as fans of Emma Straub and Maria Semple.
"So sharp, so funny. You might feel better or worse about your own life, but you'll definitely be laughing." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Do you ever wonder if everyone else somehow got a secret leg up, insider knowledge, or even just a map to navigate the proverbial lay of the land? Such is the premise of Rachel Dodes and Lauren Mechling's charming new novel. ... A modernized Sliding Doors set amid a delightfully specific milieu, this is a paranormal parable with a very relatable heart." —Vogue
"Don't miss The Memo. A unique and riveting novel about a chance to redo your 'what ifs.' You will love this narrator and be pulling for her." —Laura Dave, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me
"Insanely entertaining, hilarious, and ingenious! The Memo had me cry-laughing so hard that my husband had to move to another room. My only complaint about The Memo is I wish I'd gotten my hands on it sooner. To think of what could have been!" —Jenny Mollen, actress and New York Times bestselling author of City of Likes and Live Fast Die Hot
"Smart, sharp, darkly funny, and every woman's fantasy: the chance to course-correct a life full of flawed decisions with the help of a memo. What could possibly go wrong?! I loved The Memo and the brilliant imaginations of Lauren Mechling and Rachel Dodes that created it." —Laura Zigman, bestselling author of Animal Husbandry and Small World
This information about The Memo was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rachel Dodes is a freelance culture writer. She's a regular contributor to Vanity Fair, and her work has also appeared in Town & Country, Elle, Esquire, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Buzzfeed among other publications. She was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal where she covered fashion and film. She lives in New York with her husband, son, and dog.
Lauren Mechling is a senior editor at the Guardian US and has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, The New Yorker online, and Vogue, where she wrote a regular book column. She's worked as a crime reporter and metro columnist for the New York Sun and as features editor at the Wall Street Journal. She is also a young adult novelist. A graduate of Harvard College, she lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two children.
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