Hello and Welcome!

Red House Books is going through a bit of a update!

I've always had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted this space to be but I've been detoured from my path by...lots and lost of other people's opinions and ways of doing things...

I'm committed to this little chunk of the interweb but I've also branched out into other places so! Now it's time to think of Red House Books as more of a hub of all things me! And Me is a hell of a lot of book love!

Stay tuned!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Book Review: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

Sometimes, a girl needs to lose.
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 get all his inside jokes, and maybe he wouldn't be so frustrated with her for forgetting things she can't possibly remember.
She'd know about her mom's new family.
She'd know about her dad's fiancee.
She wouldn't have to spend her junior year relearning all the French she supposedly knew already.
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.
But Naomi picked heads.

One little coin flip and her life will never be the same. After a head injury, Naomi must face the fact that 4 years of her life are missing to her. She doesn't remember her best friend, her boyfriend or why her parents are divorced. She can't recall why she was going to drop her photography class or how she came to be so passionate about being the editor of the school yearbook. Life moves on however, and so does Naomi.
I absolutely loved this book. Every character Zevin created was intensely real and completely believable. I felt a connection to Naomi from page one. Hers is a story that could really happen to anyone. One of my favorite characters is Naomi's dad. I feel that a lot of teen books today portray parents in very stereotypical ways. Not so in Memoirs. Naomi's dad felt like a real person to me - one that Naomi could actually relate to. Their relationship is only a small part of the whole story but to me it was important and I was impressed with the way Zevin wrote him.
I don't want to say too much for fear of giving too much away - this is really a story you need to experience for yourself!
I highly recommend this book to YA fiction and / or romance fans - 5 stars.

7 comments:

  1. Interesting idea for a plot. This sounds like a book that my kid and I could both read and enjoy! Great review!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That sounds great! That book is going to my TBR!

    ReplyDelete
  3. man im totally going to get this! great review!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thought Gabrielle Zevin's book Elsewhere was just kinda okay. I really had mixed feelings about it. However this one sounds sooo good and I've heard great things about it so I'm going to give this one a shot. I'm really glad you enjoyed it. :D

    ~Briana

    ReplyDelete
  5. I didn't love this book BUT I did really dig your review.

    I just heard from the TV and Book Addict that they are making this a movie.

    http://tvandbookaddict.blogspot.com/2009/09/memoirs-of-teenage-amnesiac-movie.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've read Elsewhere and loved it. I'm definitely going to read this one. Thanks for the great review!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ah! I love this book, it's great.
    I read Elsewhere first, and well, it was okay...but for me nothing special but I LOVED this one.
    Great review :)

    ReplyDelete



Thanks a bunch for visiting :)