Finding Grace -- Alyssa Brugman

Once again, I love Australian YA!  I still haven't read one that I haven't liked.

Grace had a brain injury.  That's just how she was.

She spent a lot of time sitting in her leather wingbacked chair just staring out the window.  I didn't know what was happening inside her head, and I didn't really think about it.

I was eighteen and knew everything.  Well, not everything, but I did know a great deal about a great many things.  For example, I knew that time healed most wounds and those that it didn't you simply got used to.

That was before I met Grace or Mr. Alistair Preston.

It's just a great book.  Rachel is a fun character who grows up in a realistic way over the course of the book, her mother is fabulous, I really liked Mr. Preston and I cared about Grace.  (Also, Hiro is hot.  Which is always a plus).  Brugman actually does a great job of letting the reader get to know Grace through some old papers that Rachel finds--so you get to know her without some ridiculous magical breakthrough connection between Rachel and Grace.  Which is good.

And it's funny:

Cyclists should have a gong.  I'm sure people would have more respect for them if they had a gong.  Also, it would help if they didn't shave their legs.  Please?  How much quicker do they honestly think that makes them?  If your leg hair is so long that it's getting caught in your spokes, fair enough.  I can see how that would make a difference.  Otherwise, I'm not convinced.

Of course, I might just find that terribly amusing because all of the annoying tourists are starting to invade town wearing all of their annoying Lycra.  Yuck.

Anyway, there's also a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and to ST:NG.  Way cool.  She doesn't explain either of them--if you catch them, you catch them.  As it should be.