Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

In her imaginative second novel, an unusual love story, the highly acclaimed author of Elsewhere offers a unique exploration of teenage identity and self-discovery. The heroine, a teen who is forced to re-invent herself and reconstruct her life after she suffers a head injury that leaves her with a four-year memory loss, grapples with many issues teens will find familiar: romance, changing friendships, and a dysfunctional family. But this teen s amnesia gives her the perspective to see herself and others clearly for the very first time. At times funny and always thought provoking, this tale effectively touches upon themes of chance, loss, and choice, in a moving story readers won t soon forget.

Oh dear, oh dear…*shakes head sadly”.

What is it with fathers? Am I just expecting too much of them do you think? Don’t get me wrong, this dad is a sweetheart and he was there for his daughter when she needed him which gives him a gazillion brownie points but the dude was also a bit of a moron. There, I’ve said it – but you were expecting that weren’t you because this is me writing this review.

His daughter can’t remember anything of the last four years and within a few weeks she has to deal with the fact that her parents are divorced, her mother had another family because she was having an affair, she doesn’t live in the house where she grew up anymore and then good-old-dad dumps the bomb shell that he is getting married.

Uhhhh, Moron!

No one seemed to quite understand just how Naomi was feeling as she tried to pick up her life with a gaping hole in her memory, they all seemed a little too keen to push her – especially her idiotic boyfriend. I hate teenage boys. I hated them when I was a teenager and I still don’t like them. The immature ones any way.

Niomi’s reaction to finding out – again (I suppose) – that he mother had left both her dad and her for another man made absolute sense to me. Calling her mother a cheating slut seemed pretty tame to me actually. I would be a little annoyed too I think. One think I really didn’t like was when Naomi and her mother did reconcile and she had a conversation with her mother and her new husband. They spoke of their love story being 20 years in the making or something like that (her mother had an affair with her old high school sweetheart). Now I am sorry, even though this section was only a few paragraphs long it made me fuming mad. She had an affair. Broke her husband’s heart, destroyed her marrage and ended up pregnant by another man (while still married) because of this affair and she has the nerve to talk about love story’s. That made me ANGRY! But that is just a personal feeling rather than anything else.

Naomi’s best friend Will was a sweetie, and made her playlists, one called ‘Songs for a Teenage Amnesiac’. I thought that was cute.

Naomi’s relationship with her boyfriend Ace seemed forced – which it was meant to as she couldn’t remember him, or why she was even in a relationship with him.

And then there was her relationship with James…(not going there)

The whole book had this underlying sadness to it though that did cling to me even after I had finished.

So my final word about this book iiiiiss…it was OK. I am glad I only paid 99p for it because it isn’t the kind of book I would have gone for normally. On the whole it didn’t quite ring true for me…

I suppose the message (whoa, getting deep here aren’t I) that it left me with at that end was that nothing is ever permanent, things change and life goes on. But the people that truly matter and care for you will still be by your side at the end of it all.