Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
posted in realistic fiction, young adult, book review |
“Above all, mine is a love story. And like most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma.”
Remember the last four years of your life? Naomi doesn’t. The summer before her junior year of high school, Naomi lost a coin toss, was designated to go back to get the yearbook camera, and fell with the camera down the school stairs. Upon waking, the last four years of her life are gone from her memory. Gone are her memories of her parents’ divorce, her half-sister Chloe, her best friend Will, and her boyfriend Ace. Most significantly, gone is her sense of identity.
On the one hand, talk about your major bummer. On the other hand, this absence of memory and identity gives Naomi the chance start fresh and build her identity anew. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is the story of a girl who sets about redefining herself in the face of complete and utter blank regarding her identity.
To begin creating herself anew, Naomi sets about discovering clues to who she formerly was. Her main source of information regarding her former self is her best friend Will (who somewhat abstrusely has nicknamed her Chief). Her father also tries to help her by making a list. Along the way, she discovers useful information such as she has a boyfriend, owns birth control pills, keeps a food diary, and co-edits the yearbook. Post-head trauma Naomi is not sure she knows who this girl is. Even when her memory returns, Naomi’s relationships and Naomi herself remain changed.
Three guys–who sometimes confuse and sometimes illuminate aspects of her identity–loom large in Naomi’s life. She can’t really remember what she saw in Ace, although he does play a mean game of tennis and provides her with an “in” to the popular crowd. She just met James after the accident, so she is free to build this relationship anew; she feels a strong attraction to James and to his mercurial moods. And then there’s Will—Will, her best friend, fellow yearbook editor, maker of mix takes, and the one who just may be best positioned to help her discover the Naomi she wants to become.
I was, I am, and I will are the three parts of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac. Zevin’s story is about the process of becoming. Throughout Naomi’s self-discover process, the novel does include teen drinking, smoking, references to attempted suicide (wrist-cutting technique) and past sex. None of these issues are the main focus however, as Zevin is using them as tools to explore her themes of memory, love, and identity. She writes about the bond to the past, the depth of friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit.
Even though our own lives are not likely to offer the same opportunity as Naomi’s life did to fully erase and start over re-creating our identities and relationships, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac serves as a necessary reminder (how ironic) that each new day offers a fresh beginning with opportunities to make new choices.
Need another book?
For further exploring the rediscovery of relationships and reinvention of self: I Was a Teenage Popsicle by Bev Katz Rosenbaum
For further exploration of the formation of identity and teen trauma: Someday this Pain will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron
For further exploration of love and loss by Gabrielle Zevin herself: Elsewhere.
