Josh GraysonCritiques

This YA novel was Josh Grayson’s debut, and it is with pleasure I can say it delivered on all fronts: it’s well written, compelling, well conceived and structured, and…joy of all joys, immaculately edited. Well done, Josh.

Seventeen-year-old Sia wakes up on a park bench with absolutely no idea how she got there, but worse still, with no idea who she is. After a week ‘on the streets’, she finds herself back in the bosom of her family, diagnosed with ‘fugue amnesia’. Whilst she waits for her memory to return, she discovers her family is extraordinarily wealthy and she was part of a group of girls who tormented those less well endowed with money or looks. She also had the best-looking boy in the school as a boyfriend. Her amnesia makes her a different person. A rather amiable, considerate, compassionate one: the complete antithesis of her ‘former’ self. She finds she likes this person, but fears once her memory returns she will be the arrogant, unfeeling, shallow Sia.

This is a voyage of self-discovery and along the way Sia finds that wealth and looks aren’t everything.

The plot was simple and uncomplicated, but the message was meaningful: sometimes you are forced to look at your life and priorities, and adjustments are often for the better. I cared for Sia from the start: her fate was by no means predictable. The person she used to be was not a likeable one, but she was almost a victim of circumstance, pathetic even. The post-amnesia person is who you root for, and Grayson keeps the story sharp and focussed till the end. An extremely promising debut novel.

This book had all the right elements to make it a win for me. Sia wakes up not knowing who she is and when she finds out about her life and the way she's been acting she decides to turn her life around by helping the less fortunate. She wants to help the homeless specifically because she witnessed and went through the troubles living on the streets can bring you first hand. When she woke up not knowing who she was, Carol, her soon to be friend took her under her wing and helped her out. She wants to repay that kindness and see to it all the adversity she faced would change for others in that same predicament. Sounds like it would be sooo good right? Well, it was horrible.

The way Sia reacted to things just annoyed the hell out of me. The way everything happened made no sense. At one point Sia gets yelled at by someone who goes to her school. Of course she didn't know this person and she ran out on the street and got hit by a car. Okay, I can see that happening. Someone is verbally attacking you and you run away from them but just like that she's back in her parents' home. She wakes up in a hospital, talks to the doctor and her parents for a little while, and goes home. Oh I sustained no injuries from that CAR HITTING ME let's just go home now and resume everything like nothing happened. Oh, her head was mentioned to be hurt but that's all she suffered from. Perfectly logical sequence of events...

The way everything was forced to be a message was another part of this book that irked me. Everything bad that happened to her was a message and her seeing how she needs to help people and change who she is (insert sarcasm here). She was almost forced to be an "entertainer", she gets hit by a car, she witnesses a homeless person being beaten up, she's spit on and she gets called a bum who can't get a job when she clearly is a teenager. I mean it's great that someone wants to get some awareness to the way we treat homeless individuals and how we should be a more caring and charitable society. That's great but the way everything is written and how everything is piled upon another does not do the message any justice. It just creates an inadequate story.

There were also problems in Sia's house. Her mother was an alcoholic and they were going bankrupt. One talk to her mother and she magically decides she will go to rehab and her father decides hey! I don't have to worry about financial issues that might ruin me and my family. I won't even think about it anymore thanks Sia for setting me straight. Like parents actually ever listen to teenagers in real life and stress can go away just like that. And did I mention how she likes to tell anyone who's around how her family is having financial problems but she doesn't care because all she needs is her family? Again there's a good message in there but the way it's executed is just awful. You are just going to air your family's private problems out there? Like it doesn't even matter if your parents don't want anyone to know? She just says it like it's no big deal. The way she talks... It frustrated me to no end.

The boy who yelled at her and caused her to get hit by a car? Well that boy's name is Kyle and he seems like he's going to be alright but then there are the cliché snide remarks that start popping up about how her family is so rich and how she has such a hectic social life so how can she possibly find the time to help anyone else when everyone knows she lost her friends the day before. He starts acting cold around her and I understand him not wanting to get too close because what if she remembers and turns back to her old self? But, the ending of this so called romance... I knew what was going to happen and I was hoping beyond hope it didn't. It was just the most cliché, roll your eyes type of ending. I mean the epilogue was sort of nice I'll give it that but the main ending was so predictable and so not justified. I saw no chemistry! No connection between the two. Imaginary connection I'm sure but as the reader I felt nothing for the two of them together. The idea of this story was really excellent but the execution was not well done. I didn't like any of the characters, the messages of the story were too forced making them useless, and the events that took place made no sense. This book was just not for me.

Couldn't get myself to finish it. Didn't like the first chapter at all, and hardly got any further. Stopped after chapter three and I just gave up.

The rating should really be 2-1/2 but Goodreads and other places don't allow half stars.

I received this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this one, and with ARCs I try to ignore poor editing, typos, grammar errors, et cetera because I know that a lot of times, the book will be edited before it hits the general public. But I also know that that is not ALWAYS the case.

The premise was hugely intriguing. Popular teenage girl wakes up on a park bench and has no idea who she is.

But instead of trying to figure out who she is and where she is from and where she belongs, she essentially goes into hiding and lives like a homeless person and makes no effort to figure out any of her own stuff.

After a week (a week!) on the streets, she gets into it with a soup kitchen volunteer and runs away, getting hit by a car, and I assume the boy from the soup kitchen told the paramedics and cops who she was, because the doctor knows her name and she is reunited with her parents.

I was a bit bothered by how people around her changed so drastically because she wanted them to. It doesn't work that way in reality, so that was a hard one for me to grasp.

There was an awful lot of cliche and a lot of very simplistic writing. While this made for an easy, quick read, it left me with a lot of...confusion and a lack of closure. It just seemed to easy. The ending felt rushed and the characters at the beginning (the homeless people) seemed more developed, while they were not as integral a part of the story in the long run. Yet her parents, the friends she makes, the friends she had, they seemed flat and one dimensional to me.

I struggled with writing this review because I really, really wanted to like this one, but I feel like I am at a loss here. The author gets a major A for effort because the idea and the premise were awesome, just they could have been executed better. I enjoyed reading, but feel like it could have been so much more.

The rating should really be 2-1/2 but Goodreads and other places don't allow half stars.

I received this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this one, and with ARCs I try to ignore poor editing, typos, grammar errors, et cetera because I know that a lot of times, the book will be edited before it hits the general public. But I also know that that is not ALWAYS the case.

The premise was hugely intriguing. Popular teenage girl wakes up on a park bench and has no idea who she is.

But instead of trying to figure out who she is and where she is from and where she belongs, she essentially goes into hiding and lives like a homeless person and makes no effort to figure out any of her own stuff.

After a week (a week!) on the streets, she gets into it with a soup kitchen volunteer and runs away, getting hit by a car, and I assume the boy from the soup kitchen told the paramedics and cops who she was, because the doctor knows her name and she is reunited with her parents.

I was a bit bothered by how people around her changed so drastically because she wanted them to. It doesn't work that way in reality, so that was a hard one for me to grasp.

There was an awful lot of cliche and a lot of very simplistic writing. While this made for an easy, quick read, it left me with a lot of...confusion and a lack of closure. It just seemed to easy. The ending felt rushed and the characters at the beginning (the homeless people) seemed more developed, while they were not as integral a part of the story in the long run. Yet her parents, the friends she makes, the friends she had, they seemed flat and one dimensional to me.

I struggled with writing this review because I really, really wanted to like this one, but I feel like I am at a loss here. The author gets a major A for effort because the idea and the premise were awesome, just they could have been executed better. I enjoyed reading, but feel like it could have been so much more.

This was a truly beautiful story. It was moving, it was emotional, it was simply gorgeous. It is not in any way a light story, but one full of deeply intense situations and issues. It doesn't shy away from issues of alcoholism, bullying, judgment, etc. It was a real story that was not glossed over.

Sia is the epitome of the spoiled little rich girl... until she wakes up on a bench in a park with no memory of who she is or how she ended up in this park with nothing more than an iPod with the name "Sia" on it. For the next week, she ends up living a life that she never expected or paid any attention to prior to her bout of amnesia. She is reunited with her old life after an accident lands her in the hospital, but she still has no memory of who she once was. As she reintegrates with her family and "friends," she realizes what she really was... a bully and a mean girl. It is a life that she no longer wants for herself, especially when she starts to learn the truth about her own family. I love the change in her life, going from the queen bee to being the outsider. It is a good reminder to look beneath the surface and think of others.

This is a story about looking at life and priorities from a new perspective. All of a sudden, There are messages in this story that are important for all of us. She realizes that she has been living a life to please everyone else instead of being true to herself.

Things to love about Sia...

--The willingness to be raw about real issues like bullying and judgment.
--Carol and Sia. It is an unlikely friendship that is beautiful.

Things I wanted more or less of...

--More grittiness. I think Sia's week of self-discovery was a little easier than it would be in reality.
--More angst with Ashley. It just seemed like Ashley came around far too easily.

Some quotastic goodness...

--Comprehension dawns, and all the blood leaves my head in a rush. I start to shake. No matter what question I ask, the answers all point in one horrifying direction. I have no idea who I am (Loc. 113-114).
--“Sia, dear, can we please not discuss your homeless friends over lunch? I’m trying to eat (Loc 872).”
--I feel increasingly sick listening to my so-called friends talk, their eyes dancing with malicious laughter. Was I really one of these people? Was I ever such a selfish, cruel person (Loc. 1310-1311)?
--And now I know what to do with the rest of it. I have a lifetime ahead of me, one I hope to fill with as much love and joy as I can find. One I will fill with beautiful memories. Who am I? I’m Sia Holloway. And this is the me I was meant to be (Loc. 4207-4210).

My recommendation: A fantastically gorgeous story that I highly recommend to those who want their faith in humanity restored!

DNF... I got decently through though. And I did skim to the end... overall this book was NOT my cup of tea

I was given this novel as an advanced readers copy. Content may have changed between the advanced copy and publication.

The Sia Holloway before the novel was a bit of a jerk. She was a popular girl who got giggly from humiliating people and maintained a superiority complex by dragging others down. Grayson creates a teen in “Sia” that wants to be a better person and in so doing he allows her to maintain the shallowness and self-absorption of the average teen. As sorry as Sia seems for her behaviour her primary attitude seems to be “OMG, if I can’t remember it, it didn’t happen so let it go.” Redemption doesn’t happen as easily as Sia thinks it should but as a woman who has done a 180, she simply has to stay in her lane to prove herself.



Grayson missed a few opportunities in his début novel. The first is the issue of substance abuse. Over the course of much of the novel Sia’s mother is in rehab as a result of alcoholism. There are happy little visits and Sia and her father lend her mother support but as with much of the novel, and perhaps because its geared to teens, her healing process is all “off camera.” It makes the rehab process seem to the child to be very an easy and happy one with butterflies and rainbows. Seeing some of the process could have served as a valuable point within the story line.



The second missed opportunity related to Amber. She could have been an excellent antagonist. In the narrative she was powerless without Sia though she made a lot of noise. Teen girls do not see those mean girls as powerless and showing a deeper sense to Amber and more of why she was the way she was might help the teen audience gain perspective in their own school relationships. Amber makes some big moves but they are of desperation.



The message of the novel is of a teen girl given a second chance to be whom she should be and to make a difference in her community. She has been a vacuum of consumerism blind to the problems that her parents faced financially and emotionally. When Sia’s memory goes, her eyes open to the world around them and the kindness of Carol, the homeless woman who helps her survive at the start of the novel, opens her heart. There is a romance sub-plot though no sex. “Sia” would be an appropriate read for a middle school audience.



“Sia” would be an excellent novel for the Disney Company to adapt for film. Hers is a story of cruelty and kindness, pain and redemption and ultimately of making the world in which you live a better place. A good example for any teen who might choose to read this exciting work of fiction.

Sia is a very interesting story. The story of the girl with amnesia, who is afraid to find help from the police because she doesn't know if she is running from the law. She wanders dressed in exercise clothing, knowing that she stands out, wanting to escape into the background, and very hungry.

The first person she talks to ends up being a creep. He seems nice, feeds her, and then propositions her. She was lucky to escape. She wanders and comes across a woman named Carol. Carol is an amazing character. Carol is homeless, but she sets aside her own concerns and takes Sia under her wing and helps her survive a week living on the streets.

The book shifts at this point when Sia is recognized by a young man volunteering at the Soup Kitchen. She flees and has an accident that lands her in the hospital. Her new world and old world collide when she is thrust back into a life that she doesn't remember. The life that she has lived is not desireable. She is popular, comes from a wealthy background, but she isn't nice. The question is how can she live her life and be the person that she wants to be in her environment? When her memories come back will it change her to who she was before?

Josh Grayson has done a wonderful job at laying out and implementing his story. The story brings out some great points at how a person can change and do something positive with their life, even with a history of mistakes.

Josh Grayson’s SIA, is a promising YA contemporary debut.His writing was clear, easy to understand and smooth.

Many books with the Amnesia theme have been published over the years, but this one will have you reflecting on your current and past actions.
The overall plot of this book, is simple – a girl gets amnesia, meets boy, and then they fall in love. The bottom line - It is a story about a mean girl wanting to be a better person.

I had an issue with the way she adjust back to her old life - Why it didn’t occur to her to try and find out who she was and where she had come from I don’t know, why , when a boy at the soup kitchen then recognized her, didn’t he know that she had been missing for a week? Why every issue from her mother's alcohol problem to her parents' failing marriage got solved in just the blink of an eye? It felt like the author avoided any conflict. Problems and issues were effortlessly solved with Sia and her family easily moving on with their lives.

I liked Carol, a lady that Sia meets, is a fantastic character. She takes Sia under her wing and helps her navigate during the week she is living on the streets.

The next character that I find easy to like is - Kyle a cute boy who smells like bread and cinnamon. He is a typical no-one kind of teenager, something like a sexy geek. He was smart, grumpy and with a heart as big as the sky. I like how he was involved with helping other people.

Something that made me chuckle - when Sia returns to school wearing the simplest outfit in her closet with sneakers and without makeup or jewellery her cheerleader friends have a panic attack and get to work in making her more 'presentable.' and Sia reaction to this -
"I'm happier now," I say. "I don't have to pretend all the time."
"Pretend? What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about always having to have the right clothes, the right make-up, the right walk, the right boyfriend- everything. It's exhausting, putting up that façade. Life's much easier now that I'm not a full-time beauty queen."

Defiantly, the most important part is - Sia getting a second chance at life. Due to her amnesia, she starts over as a much more loving and giving individual. Overall, I recommend Sia if you want a light read. I think this is a great YA book that many teen girls will enjoy (sexual content mot exist even though there is a strong attraction between Sia and Kyle).½

5 STARS

Sia lives up to what I was told about the book. It is uplifting and clean YA novel. It was full of drama, great characters and made me look at myself and want to help more. I don't think I would handle the situations Sia faces very well at all.

Sia wakes up in a park having no idea where she was or even who she is. She starts walking and finds out she is in LA. We get to see her face homeless and get a look at life out on the street. We see some bad and some good people she meets along the way.
After Sia is reunited with her family and friends we see how different she is now. Everyone wants Sia to go back to the way it was before her memory was lost. Sia likes the changes.

Carol's is upbeat having lived on the street for years. She is willing to help others and to comfort Sia. She becomes a true friend to her.

Amber and Stacy are Sia's best friends. They are the cheerleaders, a bunch of mean girls who look down on others. When Sia does not want to do what they want and wear what they want her to wear they shun her.

This story hits so many points. It shows a little about life on the street. About mean rich snobby high school girls. Peer pressure.
Alcoholism, service to others and forgiveness. We can change who we are if we want to one step at a time.

I had a hard time putting this book down. Yes in some ways you figure out where the story is going but it is a enjoyable ride getting there.
Yes it is getting fast differences of ratings from different people. Yes the first part of the story is better you are not sure where it will take you.
Yes it is happy cheesy ending but I love happy cheesy endings.
I was given this book to read and asked to give honest review of it by the author and Netgalley.

11/20/2013 PUB Josh Grayson

I am going to keep this short and clean.

Josh Grayson’s SIA, is a promising YA contemporary debut. Many books with the Amnesia theme have been published over the years, but this one will have you reflecting on your current and past actions. Although a fiction, SIA inspires.

If you look at the overall plot of this book, it’s really simple – girl gets amnesia, meets boy, and then they fall in love. But as simple and derived as it seems, there is something attracting and addicting about it. The story was good (obvious, since I read the book all in one sitting), the characters were animated, and nothing was overdone. Why I usually stay away from these novels with memory-loss themes, is because the plot tends to drag and unnecessary details are usually integrated. But you will not find any of that here. Josh Grayson smoothly transits the action, and keep matters moving forward. Yet, it does not seem as if he is trying to rush his characters; Sia did not just – all of a sudden – fit in to Kyle’s circle, she had to earn her way in; making them believe she is not like the Sia she use to be. Ah … speaking of the pre-memory lost, Sia. Although, we did not meet her – as the story immediately takes off with her experiencing amnesia --with the way her friends and family were describing her, it made me felt sick. If that was how I was before I lost it all, I would be thankful for not be able to remember anything at all.

Although her life may seem perfect on the outside, Sia and her family have their issues. I like that this novel, does not revolve around one thing. There are happenings that circle around not only friendship, not only romance, not only family matters, BUT a little bit of each. I am drawn in by the liveliness of this book, and I hope that many readers will as well.

Beautifully written, SIA is a book of redemption.

I am looking forward, to more of Josh Grayson’s works.

A quick thank you to Josh Grayson for providing this ARC!

Disclosure: I received this book for review purposes, all opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.