Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

"Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac" by Gabrielle Zevin

I just finished this book, and the book group does not meet until the 26th, so I am typing up some of my ideas before I forget them.

This book was deeply absorbing. I read the first sentence on my way to the car from the library, and then a bit in the car, and (I must admit) a bit at the stoplight, and despite all my good intentions to clean, I made dinner and then continued to read until I had turned the last page. I love the way Young Adult novels are written, the way the stories unfold. Perhaps it's because I have more in common with this heroine, than I have with the protagonists of the last few books I've read. I have been through high schools and re-marriages and broken families. I practically lived in the theatre of my old high school, the passage about the "dingy red velvet seats and its scuffed wooden stage" really gave me warm fuzzies.

I like how the writing is at turn hopefully, bitter, sarcastic, introspective, judging, regretful . . . it really traces the patterns of a young mind. The love bits were not overly soppy, which was good because I was not in the mood for soppiness. The book just took me right back the confusion and chaos of high school, viewing it from the shelter of the present I can find it amusing and even alien.

I'm going to have to stew for a while longer before I really have a better formed opinion, but I am so glad I picked it up, it was an evening well spent.