For fans of Matt Haig and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue comes a big-hearted novel following a man who can never be remembered and his journey to become unforgettable...
HOW TO BE REMEMBERED by MICHAEL THOMPSON
Series: n/a
Publication date: June 27, 2023
Published by: Harper/HQ
Genre: romance, magical realism
SYNOPSIS
On an ordinary night in an ordinary year, Tommy Llewellyn's doting parents wake in a home without toys and diapers, without photos of their baby scattered about, and without any idea that the small child asleep in his cot is theirs.
That's because Tommy is a boy destined to never be remembered.
On the same day every year, everyone around him forgets he exists, and he grows up enduring his own universal Reset. That is until something extraordinary happens: Tommy Llewellyn falls in love.
Determined to finally carve out a life for himself and land the girl of his dreams, Tommy sets out on a mission to trick the Reset and be remembered. But legacies aren't so easily won, and Tommy must figure out what's more important - the things we leave behind or the people we bring along with us.
How to be Remembered is a heart-warming, poignant and ultimately inspiring novel about the important things in life.
Purchase your copy now!
Praise for How To Be Remembered:
"How to Be Remembered wears its heart proudly, earnest in the way of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or, dare I say, Forrest Gump." ― The Guardian
"Original, engrossing, sweet" ― Graeme Simsion, New York Times bestselling author of The Rosie Project
"With turns of poignant hilarity and quiet grief, How to Be Remembered is sure to be a new favorite for readers who enjoyed V. E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. . .a stunning tale." ― Booklist, STARRED review
"An inspiring novel about how everyone makes an impact, even after the world forgets them." ― Foreword Reviews
"How to Be Remembered is my favorite kind of book: a story with a 'wow' factor. Michael Thompson has taken a fun and intriguing idea -- a big idea -- and turned it into a wonderful, humorous, very human ride." ― Michael Poore, author of Reincarnation Blues
"An engrossing story about keeping determination, hard work and hope steady despite adversities. A coming of age with an intriguing supernatural twist, How to Be Remembered will inspire you to hang on tight to what you hold dear and will rekindle your appreciation for what it means to be human" ― Sarah Jost, author of Five First Chances
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Thompson has been a journalist, producer and media executive for the last fifteen years. He now co-owns a podcast production company called Fear and Greed – home of Australia’s most popular business podcast. He lives in Sydney with his wife, two young children, two cats and his beloved lawn. How to Be Remembered is Michael’s first novel.
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REVIEW
How To Be Remembered by Michael ThompsonLately, I've been getting into books with magical realism a lot, so when I saw this story pop up on Netgalley, I was excited to give it a try. The plot is quite different from anything I have heard before as well, which is always an encouraging factor when choosing something to read. Tommy Llewellyn is an odd anomaly in a familiar world. He's faced with the herculean task of starting his life over from scratch every single year on the same day-his birthday. Even his own birth parents forget his existence on his first birthday, leaving him to figure out a way to survive and thrive all by himself. It really makes you think about the ramifications of a situation like this. What would it be like to be completely alone in the world, to have the ability to make friends and memories with other people, only to have your existence wiped clean every year? Not only is your existence deleted, but everything you earn, create, possess-every physical, tangible thing you own of sentimental or financial value is taken from you. You are "rebooted" with only the clothes on your back and your wits. It's obviously a very lonely existence because you can never truly share your true self with others when they can only remember a sliver of time with you, and even that is temporary.
One obvious hurdle comes to mind when presented with Tommy's plight: how is he able to find a permanent home to grow up in year after year, as a helpless child? The answer? He becomes part of the government system where everyone knows that incompetency reigns. This was one of the few explanations received about him, and a believable one I thought. At one year old, he arrives at Milkwood House, a home for kids run by a very caring woman named Michelle. No matter how many times she forgets Tommy, she is always there for him year after year. She is the kind of selfless person that puts the children first and works tirelessly in order to help them pave their way in the world. When Tommy's life is "reset" as he calls it, no one understands how he got to be in the house, but assumes that his paperwork has been lost due to human error. This is perhaps the only time bureaucracy could ever actually benefit anyone, but poor Tommy needs all the breaks he can get.
The reader is told about many one year increments of Tommy's life, some of them detailed, and others are merely mentioned or skimmed over. Once he learns how to bluff his way through the beginning of the reset, his focus is building his friendships/relationships with those around him as quickly as he can in the limited time that he has. The faster he can bond with the people he cares about, the more time he will have to enjoy these relationships before they are erased again. For many, it's hard enough to form attachments with others in normal circumstances. I can't even comprehend how hard it must be to constantly have to rebuild the same connections with others-to always be the new person on the scene that nobody knows. It would obviously be extremely challenging, lonely, and discouraging.
Despite the odds always being stacked against Tommy, he manages to stay optimistic even when the worst-case scenario plays out. He finds small victories to celebrate and occasionally tries to find new loopholes that give him an advantage. One year, when he's hit by a car and ends up in the hospital, it ends up being his first gift in disguise. The reset happens while he's in the hospital bed, and he is shown a way to retain physical items into the next year. This is a huge advantage because it means that he can save any money that he makes throughout the year as well as personal identification and paperwork he needs. This is also where he meets one of the few people in his life that he works hard to maintain a connection with. Josh becomes his best friend and business partner. Although Tommy doesn't make friends easily, when he does, he does everything in his power to keep them in the repetitive rhythm of his world.
Tommy's life is told in stages: his first year with his birth parents, his time in Milkwood House, the years at the hostel, and the period when he moves into his girlfriend's apartment. Each stage has a lot of repetition and not a whole lot of expansion of his predicament. The problem is that Tommy is wary of "rocking the boat" so to speak. Once he finds himself in a comfortable spot where he can cruise through resets without much hassle, he's content to do just that. He has goals for the future, but with very little knowledge of how to overcome his erasure, he just cannot make much progress. Frankly, there are chunks of the book that become a bit monotonous. I guess I was hoping that he would explore his magical boundaries more, try theories, and be more proactive in discovering the answers to his odd reality. Instead, what he discovers is very little, and most of it merely by chance. This leaves the reader in a somewhat stagnant plot that becomes mired in predictability. It never felt so slow that I had to force myself to keep reading, or take small, frequent breaks. However, I think it was merely the main character's likability and determination that kept me reading steadily. You really do root for him to find a way to create a permanent life for himself and maybe even someday create a family.
There is a romance in the story, though I would say that it remains in the background for at least half of the book. We meet Tommy's girl Carey in his Milkwood House days, but she doesn't reappear again until much later. He falls hard for her as a young teen, but unfortunately for him, she never notices him in a romantic way. This is why his long-lasting "love" for her does not quite feel realistic to me. It's more of a one-sided crush that he never really gets over. In the back of his mind, he's always wondering if she's okay somewhere out there in the world, and if she's happy. Once he finally does cross paths with her, their relationship escalates quickly. The problem is, we are told of this escalation rather than shown, and I don't think that allows their feelings to develop naturally. This is probably a result of the time constraints that he has, but I do think it could have been explored at a deeper level.
I'm used to reading full fantasy novels as opposed to magical realism, so the lack of explanations takes some getting used to. Apparently, this is a common feature of the genre-not being told why these magical things happen in an otherwise average world. I have so many questions about why things are happening, and just being forced to believe for no reason at all is a hard one for me. For example, what is Richie's significance to Tommy? He is clearly a sociopath based on what he did to him when they were children, however, we never know why he is at the center of these horrible scenarios that upset his hard-won routines. Why does it simply take being in his vicinity to risk not just an erasure, but a total replacement? I thought surely some backstory with Richie would be given at some point, something substantial to make me understand why he seemed to alter Tommy's reality in such a different way. Why is it that when mistakes happen, it's only someone that he despises that replaces him? If it were a friend instead of a sociopath or abuser that takes his place, there wouldn't be the same kind of despair as a result. It begins to feel like a plot device rather than a natural element in the story.
I appreciated Tommy's exploration of his small, lasting impacts in a world that is unable to remember him. We all want to leave our own footprints in the world, making a difference to others in a way that will never be forgotten. For Tommy, he must be satisfied with anonymous impacts like a cactus he plants that gives comfort to a kind nurse, and a window that he fixes that stays fixed long after he's gone. These things are not monumental, though they do give him comfort that his actions can have permanence in a positive way. I really feel like this could have been delved into more. Perhaps he could have tried to make a large impact in the year he's given, to show that even without money or power we can change other people's lives significantly. I just feel like we barely scratched the surface in what he could have experimented with and the ways he could have learned to game the system.
The end rushes up quickly, and I was worried with the small amount of time left that it would end in tragedy. Again, he discovers a huge advantage by chance, and this sets him up to be able to hold onto something very precious to him: a true home. There was one major flaw in the way that this was explained, however, I was glad that he finally got his happy ending.
This was an okay read, I feel that it could have been much more exciting had it lived up to all of its potential. There were so many thought-provoking possibilities that were never touched on, and the characters could have used a lot more detail and definition to flesh out the relationships better. However, I did appreciate the unique idea of the story so I would recommend it to anyone looking for something a little different with an endearing main character.
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