Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
by Gabrielle Zevin
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Book Reviews of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Book Review: A great book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Above all, mine is a love story. Unlike most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma. It began with a coin toss. The coin came up tails. I was heads. Had it gone my way, there might not be a story at all. Just a chapter, or a sentence in a book whose greater theme had yet to be determined. Maybe this chapter woul've had the faintest whisper of love about it. But maybe not. Sometimes, a girl needs to lose.
I read Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin , and loved it. It's a fun book about a girl who suffers from amnesia and can't remember the last four years of her life.
At the beginning of the book, Naomi Porter and her best friend Will, co-editors of the school yearbook, are in the school parking lot. They decide with a coin toss who should go back to school to retrieve a camera. Naomi loses, so she has to go back, but trips down the stairs and hits her head. As a result, she suffers from amnesia: she can't remember anything beyond sixth grade, anything from the last four years of her life.
Naomi feels like she's a different person from the one she cannot remember. She cannot remember her best friend, her parents' divorce, or her father's fiancèe. She cannot understand why she even liked her boyfriend in the first place.
The main themes of the book are identity and change. As a matter of fact, the novel is divided into three sections: "I was", "I am", and "I will". Naomi's reflections on who she is and who has she become reflect an identity crisis, triggered by a loss of her most recent memories.
I liked this book very much. Following Naomi's love story was fun and refreshing. The outcome might not be the most original, as I was able to anticipate the ending from the middle of the book on. But still, a fun book, one I'd recommend to lovers of YA fiction.
Book Review: A review of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Summary: 5 Stars
There are several reviews that sum the book up very well, so I won't take a lot of time doing it. The short version is that high school junior Naomi Porter takes a fall down her school's stairs and the resulting bump causes her to lose the past four years' worth of memories. The book is divided into three sections, pertaining to Naomi's memories (or lack thereof), her attitude towards life, and her relationships with Ace (her boyfriend), James (the enigmatic and exquisite brooding guy that discovers her on the stairs), and Will (her best friend who supposedly knows everything about her).
The tone and style of this story felt so perfect. I wish I could write like this. None of the characters were far beyond belief, and Zevin creates a story where you can feel for each character, even the jerks. Yes, it's a love story, but it's more a story about remembering and forgetting people, relationships, and yourself. It doesn't hammer any messages home, but gives you a year of Naomi's life and how she reconciles herself with her past and makes choices for how she'll live her life. It's beautiful and funny and sweet and sad. I think that's something all books should try to be. I don't know that I'm really doing the book justice, so I'll just say that you should go out and read this book!
On a side note, one of the characters deals with depression. This was probably one of the hardest parts of the book to read. Zevin does such an excellent job of showing that transitions from "normal" as this character stops taking medication. You feel badly for Naomi, who puts herself in a fairly dangerous situation, as well as this character, who seems to be falling apart while desperately trying to keep things together. I really appreciate the way that Zevin handles this part of her story.
Book Review: Blame it on the toss of a coin
Summary: 4 Stars
Naomi doesn't remember much after she falls down some stairs at her high school. Waking up she finds herself in an ambulance holding the hand of this one boy, James.
Then another boy, Ace, sneaks into her bedroom late one night. Wouldn't she know if he was her boyfriend? Apparently they were serious, based on the birth control pills she found earlier.
Add to this another friend, Will, who keeps calling her 'Chief' and knows alot about her.
Naomi wishes she could remember why she might have been attracted to Ace, why she can't remember her mother's other 'family' and especially why James seems so familiar.
But then again if she hadn't had the accident, she wouldn't have met James and wanted him to kiss her.
Little by little, Naomi struggles to remember her past while dealing with her new present.
I liked this story of a teen who struggles to remember after an accident. Though slow at the beginning, MEMOIRS had me turning the pages wanting to see how Naomi deals with her memory loss. The scene where Ace sneaks into her bedroom right after she's released from the hospital shows the struggle Naomi goes through trying to remember.
...The first thing he did was kiss me. On the lips. And he didn't ask my permission either.
...So, in a way, this was my first kiss.
He tasted like Gatorade( could have been worse I suppose), and his tongue was dull, directionless, and too much in my mouth. The nicest thing I can say about it was that it ended quickly.
Naomi's relationship with James shows how two wounded individuals can find strength in each other. But mostly this is a story that deals with how one has the strength to move on.
Book Review: A Book You Won't Soon Forget
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a great thing to get to know a character as you read about them in a book. It's a phenomenal thing to get to know a character as they get to know themselves.
Such is the case in this book, "Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac", written by Gabrielle Zevin, a writer who has a rare talent. The protagonist, a teenager named Naomi, becomes a victim of (as the title says) amnesia, following an unlucky even involving a camera, coffee, and steps. Naomi, even without her memories, is a fully fleshed out character, making it a joy to see her explore the newness of a life that was once so commonplace to her, to see everything she does different, to see how her amnesia changes every single relationship in her teenage life.
The story is well-crafted in that its structure mirrors life more than the rising action model of a story. Some plot lines climax, and some just fade away like a forgotten memory; which, by the way, is a large theme in this story. What we have here is not the definitive life story of Naomi Porter, but simply a year in the life of a likable, complex, and flawed character who is going through a rough--yet she's not at all angsty/brooding about it--time. Nothing in this book is forced, though the touching and relatable moments are as plenty as usage of magic in a Harry Potter book.
Much like Zevin's previous novel, "Elsewhere", this book has a permanent place on my small shelf of favorites. However, unlike "Elsewhere", I was so swept up in the story that this book has become the first novel in God-knows-how-long that I finished in a single day. This is a book that a reader can truly, truly love.
10/10 Classic.
Book Review: Remember this amnesiac
Summary: 5 Stars
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin is truly a one of a kind book. After Naomi Porter loses her memory, she struggles constantly to figure out who she was, who she is now, and who she wants to become. My inspiration to read this book was that I have previously read and enjoyed the author's other two books, Elsewhere and Margarettown.
The story line of Naomi and her battle to remember the previous four years as a teenager demonstrated the pain and hardships that she faced due to a head trauma. It is as if the author had been in a teenager's body and faced the challenges of relationships with friends, boyfriends, and parents.
The vocabulary was appropriate and easy for me to read at a high school sophomore level. I suffered a head trauma and can relate to Naomi because I also woke up in a hospital bed not knowing how or why I was there. The only part of the story I felt the author did not have to include was a sex scene, because the relationships with her boyfriends made the point.
I would recommend this book to any teenager because reading this story is as entertaining as watching a television show about relationships. I would not recommend this book to anyone younger than a teenager because some of the content is not suitable or easy for a child to understand. Adult readers might also enjoy this book because they could compare their teenage years to today's fast-paced environment.
I am a non-reader, but I am looking forward to Gabrielle Zevin's next book. Her unique approach to my age group has caught my attention and her story lines keep me reading.