Sia by Josh Grayson

Genre:  YA Contemporary

Josh Grayson's website

Expected publication date:  November 20, 2013

Goodreads

Description (taken from Goodreads):

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.

Have you ever looked at your past and wished for a second chance to do the right thing?  Don't even look at your distant past, consider the last week.  Were there some bad choices, things you did that hurt people, stuff you wish you could have done differently?  Sia has a case of fugue amnesia where she gets just that chance to start everything new.  But she has the old, mean-girl-her overshadowing her every step.

First off, what is fugue amnesia?  According to Wikipedia, it's a disorder where someone forgets his/her personal identity, including memories, personality and other characteristics.  And Sia suffers from this.

The story begins with Sia not remembering who she is.  With no memories, she has no way of protecting herself and finding shelter.  And the streets of Los Angeles are not kind to the homeless.  After spending a week living the homeless life, her parents find her.  As she begins to be introduced into her normal world, she finds she wasn't the nice, naive girl that she's become.  Will people's memories of who she was prevent them from getting to know the new her?  Can Sia overcome the shadow that her past has become?

This book makes you feel good.  Or it makes you want to think that everyone has a little bit of good in them no matter how mean they might be to you.  I guess it gives you hope.  I really enjoyed it, and I had a smile almost the whole time reading this.  Because if a mean-girl like Sia can change her ways and overcome her meanness, can't we all?

If you've got an afternoon, go read this one.  It'll make you happy.

My favorite quote:

True friendship is when two friends can walk in opposite directions, yet remain side by side.
     ~p 108

Thanks goes to Josh Grayson for providing me a review copy.