Note to Self
Liz DeJesus

By Alyce Wilson

Note to Self follows a young woman, Samantha Adams, who has just about given up on life. She's working a thankless job in a coffee shop, surrounded by friends she considers beneath her. She's still nursing wounds from a bad breakup, when she was jilted just before her wedding.

The book juggles three ways of telling the story. One, through a diary she keeps. Two, through third person subjective narrative. Three, through excerpts from a diary by Sam's great-great-grandmother. Of the three, the diary is the most interesting. By contrast, the diary and the third person subjective narrative are mundane. What's more, they simply mirror each other. Nothing new is learned from the diary that wasn't learned from the narrative.

One of the main problems with this book is that a lot of it is completely implausible. Sam meets a guy and immediately falls for him, talking about him as if he's the love of her life. While the reader may chalk this up to confusion, it doesn't work quite the way it works with Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, where the author clear knows more than the character knows and the reader can gather that Scarlett is deluded.

Instead, it's hard to tell whether the author believes Sam is foolish. Even more of a stumbling block: although Sam is supposed to be witty and charming, Sam is more often petulant and annoying.

The book stretches believability frequently, such as when Sam's ex-fiancé tries to win her back by sending her dozens and dozens of roses. It's unlikely somebody his age could afford so many roses. Another unbelievable moment occurs when Sam reads her mediocre poetry at a poetry reading and people rave over her poems as if they are revolutionary.

While DeJesus attempts to convey the frustration and self-doubt of a young woman whose life has derailed, she fails to convey those moments convincingly. Perhaps she, like her protagonist, is still struggling with these issues, still trying to work things out in her own life.

If there's a shining moment in this book, they are the journal entries from the great-great-grandmother. In those moments, DeJesus turns her imagination loose and enters a different world. That would have been a much more interesting story to pursue.

PublishAmerica, 2005 (ISBN: 1413735525)