The Reminders

The Reminders is a heartfelt, beautiful story ... inventive, insightful, and so true to life. The characters, their relationships and the story are so rich and relatable that you're immersed in the world of the book, eager to learn how things unfold. And it's all of the little details and observations ... like Joan thinking Sydney's earmuffs were headphones. And Joan's sketches. And how she emulates her dad; and knows band names have to start with The ... they all paint such a vivid world. The tie to music serves as a clever background and is a neat peek into the world of artists/musicians ... but really it's a stand-in for any shared interest that bond people together. What's amazing is the dynamic between Joan and her father, Joan's parents themselves as they come into "adulthood" making hard family choices, Gavin and his relationship with this unique young woman ... And add in the interesting "gift" Joan has, (which is a truly fascinating REAL THING in human life) ... and the story just gets more textured and layered and wonderful. To have captured and expressed the mind of a young girl, let alone someone with the gift Joan has is a real feat, and a pleasure to read. Think along the lines of Little Miss Sunshine ... an endearing, heartwarming tale that will make you laugh out loud at times, and tear up at others, but mostly with a knowing smile on your face in understanding the ups and downs of life and the perseverance of the human spirit. A great read!

June's Debut of the Month by Amazon was a hit out of the park for me! I really enjoyed this one a lot!! I fell in love with the characters in this novel!! Joan has a very rare condition called highly superior autobiographical memory, where she remembers in vivid detail (even when someone says a specific phrase, and how many times they have said it) every day of her life since she fell out of a cart in Home Depot. Simply fascinating! This is a real condition (not necessarily caused by a head injury) that people have, notably Mari Lou Henner of Taxi fame. Enter Gavin, a down on his luck guy, who suddenly lost his partner. He becomes so distraught by the death of Sydney, he tries to erase everything about him, by burning everything Sydney has left behind. Joan and Gavin become inseparable, with Joan entering a contest for the great songwriting. She wants to create a song that everyone will remember. During the story, Joan remembers things about Sydney and shares these details with Gavin, to help him through Sydney's last days and months before his untimely death. I loved this story! The story is told in alternating points of view, between Joan and Gavin. One thing that I wish Emmich would have done is let us know right off the top who was narrating the chapters. At first I had a hard time knowing who was talking, but within 3 chapters, I got the hang of it, and ended up liking the story. I have read every Debut of the Month that Amazon has chosen, and this one is up there. Very good!!

i just finished "the reminders." what an absolute joy to read. i adore precocious Joan, who is so wise beyond her years. i love her quest/need to be remembered. i think that's what all of us want at some point. to be remembered, to be a reminder of something to someone. in times of despair i often question whether if i was gone would anyone remember me? do we make a difference? could i be someone's reminder? towards the end when joan and her dad are in home depot and she climbs the ladder wanting to fall and hit her head and lose her "super powers," i cried. it reminded me so much of when my daughter was 10 and on her swingset ladder platform and told me she wanted to jump off and kill herself. gut wrenching for a parent. i loved gavin and sydney and their relationship and quest to be parents. of all the adults in the novel (paige, ollie, sydney, veronica, and mara) i truly think gavin is the best equipped emotionally to be a parent. i loved it from start to finish. i laughed, i cried, i smiled, and i hummed along. it makes you think and fills you with joy. it's endearing and will be one of my all time favorites that i read at least once a year.

You live in the heads of a young girl with astounding memory capabilities and a man who's lost the love of his life. They ping pong back and forth to tell the story. It's kind of a fun writers trick, but starts to wear a bit thin by mid-way through. This is not a page-turner, more of a lazy summer beach read. At least the characters have some more interesting problems then the average book these days. And it's not quite a formulaic as many. But for some reason, I didn't find either character easy to connect with. I wanted to like them and cheer them on, but I never really caught on to their points of view. The reveal is a little maudlin as well. You already knew where it was headed as the author leaves rather too large bread crumbs for you to follow. Fairly well written...it's worth a look.

If the name Val Emmich sounds familiar to you, it’s because you may have recently seen him on HBO’s Mick Jagger’s and Martin Scorsese’s produced TV show Vinyl, about a record executive in the 1970’s. Or you may remember him from other popular TV shows such as Ugly Betty, 30 Rock, and Cashmere Mafia. Or you may have stumbled upon some of his songs whilst watching an episode of Teen Wolf. More recently, you may find Val Emmich in the bookstore in the form of his debut novel, The Reminders. The plot is pretty straight forward, it’s told in alternating voices (something that Jennifer Niven loves to do in her novels as well), between Gavin Winters, an actor of a semi-popular TV show that has recently lost the love of his life and Joan Lennon Sully, a precocious ten-year old girl with a fascinating but rare neurological condition that allows her to recall every single detail of her life since the age of four. Gavin and Joan’s lives meet when Gavin goes to visit his old college friends in New Jersey, as a way to escape a scandal in Los Angeles and in the meantime try to forget his time with his partner Sydney since the memories are too painful for him to move on. Meanwhile, Joan struggles with the notion of being forgotten after her grandmother has difficulty remembering her because of Alzheimer’s disease and yet can still recall all the lyrics of her favourite songs, which prompt her to believe that in order to be remembered she must write an amazing song just like John Lennon (her hero and namesake). Once Joan learns that Gavin used to be a musician, she attempts to persuade her into helping her write a memorable song if she in return shares with him her memories of his late love. Together, they forge a very dynamic and amusing bond. The novel’s strength is that is has us pondering the importance of memories. Is it a curse to forget or is it an even bigger curse to remember? Ultimately, the reader will come up with their own conclusions on that as the characters each demonstrate the pros and cons of both of those throughout the novel. If you’re a music lover (in particular a Beatles fan) you’re going to love all the tidbits about them strewn throughout the novel. I particularly enjoyed being able to see the world with child-like wonder as Joan and then seeing the world from the eyes of an emotionally broken character such as Gavin. One of the best moments in the novel is when the two of them end up on the Mindy Love Show (that for some reason reminds me very much of The Wendy Williams Show) and how that goes drastically different from how both characters thought it would go, but as a reader it was hilarious although you’re left sort of cringing for the two characters at the same time. If you’re hoping to get immersed in a music-filled ode to memories and the power they hold, then The Reminders is right up your ally. It’s a fun, light, but also thought-provoking book about love, loss, and what is worth fighting for, that will leave you missing the characters once you’re done.

From the opening pages of The Reminders, little Joan Lennon Sully wraps you around her finger. Her stunning and awe-inspiring memory, precociousness, and seemingly never-ending curiosity draw the reader into her story. When Val Emmich combines Joan Lennon with grief-stricken and embattled Gavin Winters, music is made. Joan Lennon Sully has HSAM, a rare condition which allows her to have a perfect memory. Gavin Winters has just lost the love of his life and is now struggling to find meaning. When Gavin stays with Joan Lennon’s parents to find escape, the two begin a unique and memorable friendship, based in Joan’s memories of Sydney, Gavin’s lost partner, and their shared love of music. With these two characters, Emmich creates a spell-bounding narrative, where the reader feels a part of Gavin and Joan’s friendship. The overarching theme of music lends an especially poetic feel to the book and its message. The dual perspectives of Joan and Gavin allow for extremely detailed character development, making Joan and Gavin leap off the page. With the two, you feel Gavin’s grief and lost sense of purpose while feeling Joan’s ever-increasing confusion and fear of others forgetting. Truly creative and unique, The Reminders is a reminder in itself of the power of friendship and the strength of the human spirit.

Val Emmich's The Reminders tells the stories of Gavin Winters, the star of a television show who has just lost his partner and love of his life, and Joan Lennon Sully, a ten-year-old girl with an extremely rare neurological condition that causes her to remember every single detail of her life perfectly. Their lives intersect when Gavin travels from Los Angeles to New York to stay with Joan and her parents for a while to help clear his head after attempting to rid himself of all memories of his partner, Sydney, in a bonfire in his backyard, which was captured on video by a neighbor and soon went viral. As he and Joan form a bond through her memories of Sydney, Gavin battles with the pain of remembering Sydney while knowing that forgetting him would be even worse. Meanwhile, Joan struggles with her own issues--worrying she will be forgotten by those she loves and trying to hold on to the things she loves most, like her dad's recording studio that he is planning to close. This is a very endearing story about the power of memories and the importance of holding on to them, even if doing so hurts. I adored Joan, and Emmich wrote her chapters with all the innocence and precociousness of a child while still giving her the heaviness that the weight of her condition would ultimately cause. The pain that her fear of being forgotten causes felt very real, and it contrasts perfectly to the pain that remembering his life with Sydney causes Gavin. Gavin himself was an interesting character to me. He is deeply flawed, but he acknowledges those flaws often, and his journey to accepting Sydney's death and the regrets he has as a result of those flaws reached me deeply. And sprinkled throughout Joan's and Gavin's stories are the issues facing Joan's parents, Paige and Ollie. This is the first book I have read in a while that made me pick up my highlighter and mark all the beautiful passages that Emmich crafted. His ability to switch between Joan's ten-year-old voice and Gavin's more mature and grieving voice is a work of art all on its own, and I found myself completely unable to put this book down. This was especially true once Gavin was faced with several unanswered questions about Sydney's journeys to New York, and I found myself incredibly anxious to discover what he was hiding. This is a beautiful book. Although there is a lot going on (Gavin's grief, Sydney's secrets, Paige and Ollie's issues with the studio, Ollie's job, Joan's fear of being forgotten, a songwriting contest, a TV appearance, Joan's new distance from her father), the journey through it all is worth it.

A fantastic read! It's hard to believe one writer could create characters who have such a strong POV that you could decipher each character even if their names weren't in the book. The story is solid with clever references.Gavin's grief is paralyzing and the bond he has with young Joan works so well because she treats him differently than everyone else. She's too young for social norms and to step around his grief. She's on her own mission and has no problem bartering with Gavin to get what she wants. At the end, it eventually becomes what Gavin needs. Not only does she help him handle his grief but she helps him realize what he's capable of, how to move forward, and keep his partner's memory with him. I also recommend visit the author's website as there is music that coincides with the novel. It adds a whole other layer of depth to the novel. I truly loved this read.

What a charming book. I loved this so much. Gentle, thoughtful, generous and lovely. It's a clever take on the power of memory and also forgetting, when it comes to the people we've loved and lost. The narrative switches between two first person narrators, Joan, a ten year old girl who has an eidetic memory of her whole life from when she was five, and middle aged, Gavin, a well known actor who is in the public spotlight for his very public breakdown after the loss of his partner, Syd. Joan and Gavin's lives interconnect in the most marvellous way.

Liest sich nach den ersten Seiten zu beurteilen schon sehr gut. Ich freu mich drauf, es im Urlaub zu lesen

Good read. Not predictable, which, when reading as many books as I do, is a complete delight. Very enjoyable book.

An accomplished first novel that is likeable and affecting. Good characters that develop nicely that you find yourself empathising with, particularly Joan, the central character who has perfect recall of her memories- all of them, good and bad. It's a relatively gentle but intriguing tale- a good UK comparison is probably Mark Haddon- if you like his stuff, then you will this. Well worth a look.

A very good story that is from a great era and the descriptions and details is spot on. I was interested in the story and loved it. Didn’t want it to end.