Good young adult fiction allows a teenager to place herself easily within a story, regardless of how unimaginable the story is. Gabrielle Zevin has a knack for writing such stories. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac begins with Naomi waking up in an ambulance. She has no recollection of the previous four years of her life. This includes no memory of her parents' divorce, her boyfriend, her best friend, how to drive.
As Naomi recovers she questions things she's supposed to feel. She no longer has the drive for yearbook that she once did, surprising as she is co-editor. She longs to spend time with her mother. This too is surprising, because she hadn't spoken with her mother for a very long time. Naomi also has little or no feeling for her boyfriend, Ace. Having amnesia allows Naomi to reinvent herself, which causes discord among the other key players in the novel.
While I enjoyed Elsewhere a great deal more than Memoirs, I did enjoy Naomi's journey. I found myself wondering how I would respond in her situation. I especially like the fact that Zevin's characters are human, they have flaws. It is in the exploration of the flaws of her characters, I often find pieces of myself.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
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