Is this too much of a coincidence?

Question

Before the book starts, my main character worked in a bad place where she was attacked by a boy who was detained and gets his memories taken. When the book starts, she's had an accident so she has no memory of where she used to work and is sent to live with her brother.

Her brother is part of the wrong group and decides to move to a new town to follow an old friend. The brother was told by someone who worked in the same place as the main character that the old friend was a fighter and could be coerced back. The boy who he's following happens to be the one who attacked her.

Does this sound too coincidental?

Answer 1

It's a nice irony, that's all.

But to give it depth you have to elaborate on the memory wipe. Are the memories gone forever? In which case the whole ordeal has much less importance to the plot than if they could regain their memories back, possibly generating further conflict. Sure they can find out about their past from other people, but since they can't remember it themselves I guess it won't have the same meaning for them. It certainly wouldn't have for me.

The idea of correlating one's memories with their very identities is a nice theme which you could use to your story.

Is a man's identity defined by his memories? If we lose our memories, are we still the same person we were before or are we someone else entirely.

How much one's nature comes into defining who they are?

Are we just the sum of our memories and experiences or are we something more?

Nice themes to consider when writing the story.

Answer 2

I think that whether these events are too coincidental depend on how many other such coincidences occur in your story.

A chain of such coincidences is contrivance.

One or a very small number of such coincidences is merely a fictional version of the "small world" in which real people live.