Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

 First sentence:

"Edge had the highway to himself"

Description:

Since the war came and the bombs fell, Hatfork, Wyoming, has been a broken-down, mutant-ridden town. Young Chaos lives in the projection booth of the abandoned multi-plex cinema, trying to blot out his present, but unable to remember his past. Then, over a can of dog food, the local tyrant Kellogg reveals to Chaos that those bombs never actually fell. The truth, in fact, is a little more complicated.

So Chaos gets behind the wheel of an automobile and, accompanied by a fur-covered mutant female, sets out onto the empty highway for a journey to the edge of his American nightmare, in search of a missing identity and a stolen love." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this very strange book. I especially liked the characters Chaos and Melinda and how they helped each other in their journey to find a better home.

Date read: 1/25/2024
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0571225306
ISBN-13: 9780571225309
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Year: 1995 (this edition: 2005)
# of pages: 247
Binding: Trade Paperback
LibraryThing page:

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

 First sentences:

"Hi! My name is Naok and I am a time being."

Description:

"On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, a Hello Kitty lunchbox washes up on the beach. Tucked inside is a collection of various items: an antique wristwatch, a pack of undecipherable letters, and the diary of a sixteen-year-old Japanese girl named Nao Yasutani. Ruth, who finds the lunchbox suspects that it is debris from Japan's devastating 2011 tsunami. Once Ruth starts to read the diary she quickly finds herself drawn into the mystery of the young girl's fate.

In a manga care in Tokyo's Electric Town, Nao has decided there's only one escape from te loneliness and pain of her life, as she's uprooted from her U.S. ome, bullied at school, and watching her parents spiral deeper into disaster. But before she ends it all, she wants to accomplish one thing: to recount the story of her great-grandmother, a 104-year-old Buddhist nun, in the pages of her secret diary. The diary, Nao's only solace, is her cry for elp to a reader whom she can only imagine." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I found this to be a mesmerizing book about time, connections, family and self awareness. I liked how the characters interacted and how they learn more about themselves through their interactions with others.

Date read: 1/20/2024
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-13: 978067026630
Publisher: Viking
Year: 2013
# of pages: 403
Binding: Hardcover
LibraryThing page