THE MEMO

Jenny Kugel is dreading her upcoming college reunion. While her friends are killing it professionally and personally, Jenny, once top of her class and a “most likely to succeed” bread baking protégé, finds herself stuck at 35yrs old with a megalomanic boss and a stale relationship that has somehow limped from a vacation fling into a dissatisfied long haul. How, and when, did her brilliant future disappear? She feels like she didn’t get the memo on how to live a successful life...and, as it turns out, she did not! Literally.

As Jenny packs her outdated wardrobe for what she expects will be an unbearably humiliating trip to face her college peers, she receives a text from an unlisted number: “Jenny Kugel: please collect your memo.” Hidden among the campus of her alma mater, there is a female-led organization providing comprehensive memos to select students to serve as a blueprint for success. 

Gifted with a second shot at her dream life and guided by a consortium of women collaborating on her memo, Jenny travels back through time to make the right decisions at precisely the right time. However, her optimized life leaves her cold especially when her carbs are cut, her best friend is slowly disappearing from her Memoverse and she’d much prefer to sing in her acapella group in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night and bake bread than run a fortune 500 in NYC. Ultimately, Jenny has to decide what sort of life she truly wants to live and if the pursuit of perfection is worth the personal sacrifice—before it’s too late. 

Co-written by the brilliant Lauren Mechling and Rachel Dodes THE MEMO speaks to a society obsessed with optimizing time at all costs, and winning at life.  It’s a delicious, propulsive read that also makes you think about the love and friendships right in front of you, in world where competition is everything and striving is a calisthenic. With a wry, thoughtful tone, it skewers the wellness/ feminism industrial complex with a sharpness that’s refreshing as much as it is entertaining. 

This novel is for the Emma Straub reader. It would also appeal to readers of LIFE AFTER LIFE, OONA OUT OF ORDER and Maria Semple’s work. With a high concept hook, there’s plenty for a robust publicity & marketing campaign.  *Coupled with two incredibly dynamic authors who are well-known pop culture journalists and great ambassadors for the book, it’s screaming out for Film and TV treatment and destined for the NYTBL. Suffice to say, they would reel in blurbs like nobody’s business.