Tolog Review: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
by Gabrielle Zevin
reviewed by Hannah Scott, class of 2017

Gabrielle Zevin’s Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac was a light yet eye-opening read. The challenges Naomi Porter faces in this novel reminded me that I needed to take a step back and view the difficulties of my life from a wider perspective. It also demonstrates how such small things can have tremendous impacts on our lives. Zevin manages to add on the stress of amnesia to her character’s life while still allowing her to gain a lesson out of her challenges.
Naomi Porter’s life has always had rough patches- she was left in a typewriter case by her Russian parents, was adopted by two strange Americans, and has no idea who her parents are or why they abandoned her. These unfortunate events only foreshadow later difficulties Naomi has yet to face. In the middle of her junior year of high school, Naomi’s life was great, even though she didn’t know it. She had a spot varsity tennis team, a tennis playing boyfriend named Ace, and a caring best friend named Will Landsman, her fellow editor of the school yearbook. However, all this changed because of one fateful coin toss. She accidentally fell down a flight of stairs while going back to school to pick up the yearbook camera, causing her to loose all memories she made after the age of twelve. While trying to regain her memory, she isn’t too fond of what she discovers.
Over the course of a few weeks, Naomi is forced to create a new personality due to her lack of memory, and realizes that even though she would have loved to have the chance to start over before amnesia affected her, losing all your memories is actually very difficult. However, starting from scratch allowed Naomi to evaluate the problems that plagued her life before the accident with an unclouded mindset. The book kept me wondering if Naomi would ever get her memory back and whether that would change her new view on life.
Zevin keeps readers engaged with plot twists and her expert ways of taking what could be your quintessential teenage romance novel and transforming it into a book in which the lessons Naomi learn can resonate with the readers as well. If you like The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (but not the parts about dying), then you'll love this book!