A nice enough memoir, but it didn't really live up to the expectations set by the description. The "family mystery" aspect wasn't all that suspenseful or mysterious, and it didn't feel quite as personal as I might expect given that it is marketed as a memoir.

Alex Wagner explores a feeling a lot of us who are children of immigrants have experienced: who exactly are we and how do we define our identities in America? Wagner's story is prompted by an even larger mystery that she finds in her family's past, and she writes with a humorous and historical touch in Futureface.

Futureface is a story about ancestry, exploration, discovery, and more research. Alex Wagner sought answers on both side her of her family backgrounds about who she really was. I enjoy reading about people's genalogocial searches and what they discover, Wagner gets caught up in the minutiae, which clogs the story some, but overall, readers derive a sense of who she is.

This biography is a narrative in two distinct parts. The first, the internal grappling of the author about her place in the world. The second, a more external exploration that revolves around DNA testing. The DNA testing piece of this book is a very hot topic right now and would be a good read for those interested. However, the early internal struggle had a tone that did not engage me and I didn't really connect to the story overall.

Author Alex Wagner, the only child of an Irish-Luxembourger father and Burmese mother, has always felt rootless and alone, so she traces her genealogy, visits her ancestral lands, and engages in the "greedy sport" of genetic testing in an effort to find "her people". The results are inconclusive, but Wagner fashions an entertaining tale out of her journeys to Burma, Luxembourg and the high-tech world of commercial DNA analysis. Recommend especially to readers interested in finding their own roots; this book just might convince them that what is happening in the here and now is just as important.

Please note that I received an electronic copy of this book to review from NetGalley, but I was not financially compensated in any way. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my observations while reading this book.