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donalynmiller 's review for:
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
by Gabrielle Zevin
**MINOR SPOILER ALERT** Just a few plot details revealed...
Gabrielle Zevin is on the list of my favorite YA authors right along with Laurie Halse Anderson, Chris Crutcher, John Green, Cinda Chima Williams, Jordan Sonneblick... OK, not such a short list!
Zevin's first novel, Elsewhere, was one of my favorite books last year, so I read her second novel, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac with some trepidation. While MoTA is not as clever as Elsewhere, Zevin's writing is still stellar. There were so many lines that made me tear up or laugh.
Here's one: "Sister? It was a foreign word on my tongue, gibberish. Sisters were something other people had, like mono or ponies."
or: "It's when you don't need something that you tend to lose it."
The title character, Naomi, falls down the steps in front of her school and suffers amnesia. She loses the past four years of her life, basically all of middle school and high school. She doesn't remember how to drive, how to speak French, or the fact that her parents ended their marriage in a messy divorce.
Following Naomi on her journey to "rediscover" herself, unencumbered by the baggage of who she once was,makes this book worth reading.
Yes, the ending is a bit anticlimactic and predictable, but I struggle to figure out how Zevin could tie up the plot any other way than she did.
All in all, a nice sophomore follow-up to Elsewhere. I cannot wait to read her next book.
Gabrielle Zevin is on the list of my favorite YA authors right along with Laurie Halse Anderson, Chris Crutcher, John Green, Cinda Chima Williams, Jordan Sonneblick... OK, not such a short list!
Zevin's first novel, Elsewhere, was one of my favorite books last year, so I read her second novel, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac with some trepidation. While MoTA is not as clever as Elsewhere, Zevin's writing is still stellar. There were so many lines that made me tear up or laugh.
Here's one: "Sister? It was a foreign word on my tongue, gibberish. Sisters were something other people had, like mono or ponies."
or: "It's when you don't need something that you tend to lose it."
The title character, Naomi, falls down the steps in front of her school and suffers amnesia. She loses the past four years of her life, basically all of middle school and high school. She doesn't remember how to drive, how to speak French, or the fact that her parents ended their marriage in a messy divorce.
Following Naomi on her journey to "rediscover" herself, unencumbered by the baggage of who she once was,makes this book worth reading.
Yes, the ending is a bit anticlimactic and predictable, but I struggle to figure out how Zevin could tie up the plot any other way than she did.
All in all, a nice sophomore follow-up to Elsewhere. I cannot wait to read her next book.