And fans of psychological dramas won't want to put this book down. Naomi, adopted in infancy from a Russian orphanage, can summon up more than enough hidden emotional depths to counterweight the slicker aspects of the story teens will identify with her vulnerability and her heightened feelings of alienation. Well-defined characters and convincing narration camouflage the Lifetime-movie premise and the inevitability of every plot turn (no one will doubt which characters will become romantically involved and who will end up together). The image of the boy who helped her to the hospital and stayed to make sure she was all right lingers as she tries to sort out her past and her feelings. What Naomi does remember is James, the first person she saw after her accident. Her best friend, Will, with whom she co-edits the school yearbook, and Ace, her tennis-player boyfriend, seem like strangers. She doesn't remember her parents' divorce (not to mention her mother's remarriage, her half-sister and her father's recent engagement to a tango dancer). After high-school junior Naomi conks her head, she can’t remember anything that happened since sixth grade. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.ĭeparting from the science fiction premise of Elsewhere, Zevin cooks up an entertaining love story out of what her narrator calls "chance, gravity and a dash of head trauma." As the novel opens, 16-year-old Naomi has fallen down a flight of stairs and lost all memory of the past four years. She wouldn't have wanted to kiss him back. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn't have to spend her junior year relearning all the French she supposedly knew already. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her "Chief." She'd get all his inside jokes, and maybe he wouldn't be so frustrated with her for forgetting things she can't possibly remember. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. Enthralled by Naomi’s honest, fresh voice and her occasional wry, direct appeals to the reader, teens will find her tale. a riveting narrative with compelling, complex characters. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac ( Japanese:, Hepburn: Dare ka ga Watashi ni Kisu o Shita, lit. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is a deeply moving novel that readers will be sure to ponder and remember for a long time to come. Two other male characters the amnesiac meets represent a creative love of the mind and spirit, and a love based on shared activities, open communication, honesty and mutual respect. If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. The amnesiac has a chance to step back and evaluate her choices, and is handed a do-over because her mind is a blank slate. From the author of Elsewhere and the Birthright trilogy, Gabrielle Zevin's Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is an imaginative YA novel all about love and second chances.
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