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Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
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Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (2007) (edit title/settings)

by Gabrielle Zevin (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn’t have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn’t have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn’t have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might... read more

Summary edit see section history

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her "Chief". She'd know about her mom's new family. She's know about her dad's fiancee. 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 wanted to kiss him back.

Characters/People edit see section history

  • Naomi Porter: A girl who tripped (or "dove") down some steps, saving her camera but hurting her head. Now she has amnesia, and can not remember any thing from the past four years of her life.
  • William Landsman: Naomi's best friend and yearbook editor who goes by Will. She used to call him "coach".
  • James: A boy with a troubled past. He is a witness to Naomi's accident.
  • Ace: A jock. He is Naomi's boyfriend at the time of her injury. They played on the same tennis team.
  • Chloe: a little girl
  • Rosa Rivera: a tango teacher
  • Alice: Yvette's girlfriend, runs the play, and knows Naomi from elementary. Calls Naomi "Cookie".
  • Yvette: Alice's on again and off again girlfriend
  • Winnie: A girl who works on the yearbook
  • Mr. Weir: Naomi's Advanced Photography teacher
  • Brianna: A girl who Ace is friends with and part of the popular crowd.
  • Frida: AKA Freddie, Rosa's college-aged daughter, twins with Georgia/George
  • Raina: James' mother who is very protective of him
  • Georgia: Aka George, Rosa's college age daughter, twins with Freddie/Frida
  • Jonesy: Ace's ancient dog
  • Nigel: Naomi's mom's high school boyfriend.
  • Sera: James's ex-girlfriend
  • Mrs. Tarkington: Naomi's mean teacher
  • Morty: Naomi's parent"s friend
Show all 19 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “In my opinion, wounds are like water set to boil - they heal best left unwatched.”
    Naomi (narration)
  • “We are in high school, and that means I don't have to marry anybody”
    Alice
  • “I remembered those porcupines I'd been watching with dad the night I thought Will might be dying. Not the part about the urinating. The part where they looked each other in the eye. Will and I weren't there yet. (personally,I hoped never to get to the peeing stage.)”
    Niomi
  • “"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 would’ve had the faintest whisper of love about it. But maybe not. Sometimes, a girl needs to lose.””
    Naomi
  • ““I was crying for gravity. It had sent me down the stairs and I thought that had meant something, but maybe it was just the direction that all things tend to flow.””
    Naomi
  • “"The first thing he did was kiss me. On the lips. And he didn't ask my permission either. "I couldn't recall him ever having kissed me before. "I actually couldn't recall anyone ever having kissed me before. "So, in a way, this was my first kiss."”
    Naomi
  • “I had been happy, but I didn't like the way Will was looking at me. No, looking isn't the right word. Seeing. I wasn't comfortable with how much Will saw. He made me feel transparent when I was still opaque to myself.”
    Naomi
  • “"Someday," he said, "we'll run into each other again, I know it. Maybe I'll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens, that's when I'll deserve you, Naomi. But now, at this moment, you can't hook your boat to mine, 'cause I'm liable to sink us both."”
    James
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties. Who could get you pot. You forget all of them. Even
    Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers
  • the ones you said you loved, and even the ones you actually did. They’re the last to go. And then once you’ve forgotten enough, you love someone else.”
    Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers
  • “You forget all of it anyway. First, you forget everything you learned—the dates of the Hay-Herran Treaty and the Pythagorean theorem. You especially forget everything you didn’t really learn, but just memorized the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you’ll forget those, too. You forget your junior year class schedule and where you used to sit and your
    Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers
  • They should tell you when you’re born: have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.
    Highlighted by 8 Kindle customers
  • a week-old baby girl was found in an empty typewriter case in the second-to-last pew of an Eastern Orthodox Church.
    Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers
  • I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who wants to know all your stories.
    Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers
  • “Love stories are written in millimeters and milliseconds with a fast, dull pencil whose marks you can barely see,” Fuse said. “They are written in miles and eons with a chisel on the side of a mountaintop.”
    Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers
  • Without our “madness” (how else to put it?) to unite us, there wasn’t anything much there.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • It’s like when you take a trip with someone you don’t know very well. Sometimes you can get very close very quickly, but then after the trip is over, you realize all that was a false sort of closeness. An intimacy based on the trip more than the travelers, if that makes any sense.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • The kind that you hum without even knowing what it is or why you’re humming it. The kind that you’ve always known.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
Show all 18 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

If things had been different, I'd be called Nataliya or Natasha, and I'd have a Russian accent and chapped lips year round.

Table of Contents edit see section history

I. I was
II. I am
III. I will

Glossary edit see section history

  • theorizing: to form a theory or theories about.
  • cognitive: or pertaining to the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional and volitional processes.
  • loitered: to linger aimlessly or as if aimless in or about a place: to loiter around the bus terminal

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Gabrielle Zevin (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 9780374349462
Page Count: 288

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Young Adults

A high school or mature 8th grade level. More of a "girly" book.

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
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