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“Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
By Gabrielle Zevin
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is a story about self-discovery. The hook at the start of the story was enough to capture my interest in reading this novel. “Above all, mine is a love story. And like 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 have the faintest whisper of love about it, maybe not. Sometimes a girl needs to lose.” You always wonder what would have happened had you taken the other road. Are you better or worse off?
The book is divided up into three sections: I was, I am, and I will. Naomi is a character some people would wish to be. If you could forget what has happened in your past would you want to relive it and change who you are? I found it interesting that Gabrielle Zevin decided to make the character of Naomi forget any memory that happened after the sixth grade. That signifies the changes one goes through from elementary to junior high. Lots of people change once they get to junior high. Cliques start to form and students are more segregated and trying hard to fit into the crowd in which they belong.
Naomi has to make decisions some of them aren’t always the best decisions but she grows from this experience. She is very fortunate to be surrounded by a very supportive father and her best friend, Will. Will was one of my favorite characters in the novel. He’s very clever in trying various ways to help Naomi get her memory back by creating time lines and mixed CD’s. Perhaps having a specific reason for wanting Naomi to regain her memory.
This novel is one that raises a lot of questions. It makes you wonder if you would have made similar choices that Naomi made. If you had the opportunity to change would you take it? Would you change everything about yourself or only pieces? Would you have wanted to make the right decision every time? Would you not want to change anything at all? Would you want to forget everything in your life that had led to something bad? What if?
“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 best friend's home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. And eventually, but slowly, oh so slowly, you forget your humiliations--even the ones that seemed indelible just fade away. 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. You forget all of them. Even 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."
5Q/5P”
Apra L wrote this review Saturday, December 5 2009.
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