The Memo

Dodes and Mechling’s first book together (which is Dodes’s fiction debut and Mechling’s second adult novel, after How Could She) is a tribute to a world of possibility. When a career counselor suggests to college senior Jenny Green that she quit school a few weeks before graduation, she does not take that advice, but while her friends move on to uber-successful careers, Jenny feels like she is stagnating. She wonders if everyone else got the memo and learned to succeed and why she did not. She’s not thrilled with her new assistant job, she’s pretty sure her boyfriend is cheating on her, and she has to deal with her upcoming 15-year college reunion. Then she receives an anonymous text message urging her to collect a memoir and follow its instructions; she does, and her whole world starts shifting on its axis. With a whiff of time travel, Jenny bounces between her old life and this possible new life, but eventually, she has to make a not-inconsiderable decision and face reality head-on.