Review: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin + Best Friends Romance Week Giveaway!

Hey all! I've been kind of in a blogging rut so I thought I would try something a little different. I read a whole bunch of books lately with my favorite type of romance, best friends, so I thought I'd make a week of it! I have 8 reviews and I'll wrap it up with a discussion at the end. It will actually be longer than a week since I had even more reviews than I thought. This was also kind of spurred on by the last giveaway hop because I asked people to tell me their favorite best friends romance and no one had read one! So here are a bunch you can check out.

Upcoming...in no particular order I might change things up...
The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker
Being Friends With Boys by Terra Elan McVoy
Winter Town by Steve Emond
Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
Hunting Lila & Saving Lila by Sarah Alderson
Addicted To You & Ricochet by Krista & Becca Ritchie
Frigid by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac 
by Gabrielle Zevin

Release Date: August 21, 2007
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages: 288
Genre: YA Contemporary
Source: Purchased
Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
Haunt Author: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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 know about her mom’s new family. She’d know about her dad’s fiancée. 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. After her remarkable debut, Gabrielle Zevin has crafted an imaginative second novel all about love and second chances.

ADD TO GOODREADS

Since I read Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella years ago I have been obsessed with amnesia books. There is just something so freeing about getting to start fresh and yet also scary about being thrown into a life you don't remember. I also think it is interesting to see how memories make a person and how without them that person might change. Naomi took a big fall at school and hit her head. When she wakes up she has lost four years. A big four years since apparently her parents are divorced and her mother lives with her new husband and child. Her best friend is Will and he is trying to tell her about how much she loves yearbook but it seems lame to her. And the birth control pills she found means she must not remember losing her virginity to her boyfriend Ace.

Naomi gets quite a big shock. While I think some things I'd rather forget it would be extremely hard to work yourself back into your life with no memory of your friends or boyfriend. Naomi has no clue why she even ever liked Ace. But scared her memory may come back and she will regret losing him she tries to fit back in. It doesn't really work. Thoughts of the boy who helped who when she fell, James, keep her mind busy. Eventually she realizes that she just can't be who everyone wants her to be.

I loved the romance in this one even though there were three different love interests. It wasn't a triangle. It focused more on how different people are right for you at different times. It doesn't make the relationship any less important, it just means you grow and sometimes you aren't right for someone and then later you are. Or sometimes someone you thought you loved isn't the right one. The book focused more on Naomi finding herself. How it is difficult to move on and love someone new but eventually you do. This book went way deeper than I was expecting which I loved. Lots of things that get you thinking. I just love the quote her dad says that I included at the bottom.

The cover of a typewriter plays a big role as Naomi is adopted and was found as a baby in a typewriter case. I also loved how much family and what it means to be a daughter was explored. Now that Naomi's mom has a baby of her own, Naomi feels like as the adopted daughter she isn't as important to her mom. Her parents relationship is another that follows hers, meaning sometimes the person you thought was right isn't, but you can still find love again. It's hard but eventually you forget the pain.

Best Friends Romance

I picked this book up especially for the amnesia plot but love when I find a best friends romance. At first I wasn't really sure how Will fit into Naomi's life. Slowly I did see how much he loved her and was protective of her. How much it hurt him to see her with other guys. But Naomi wasn't really ready for him but maybe now she is. Someone who sticks by you and sees all the bad and still loves you is someone is worth loving back. The ending was kind of open which is a bummer but I think it was headed in a good direction. I just loved and devoured this book.




"Someday, we’ll run into each other again, I know it. Maybe I’ll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens, that’s when I’ll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can’t hook your boat to mine, because I’m liable to sink us both."

"You forget all of it anyway. First, you forget everything you learned-the dates of the Hay-Herran Treaty and Pythagorean Theorem. You especially forget everything you didn't really learn, but just memorized the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you'll forget those, too. You forget your junior class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friend's home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. For me, it was something by Simon & Garfunkel. Who knows what it will be for you? And eventually, but slowly, oh so slowly, you forget your humiliations-even the ones that seemed indelible just fade away. You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties Who could get you pot. You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and even the ones you actually did. They're the last to go. And then once you've forgotten enough, you love someone else."

 "I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories."

"But then again maybe "I will" is nicer. It has a future in it." 

Rating: 5/5

~Giveaway~
To celebrate the week I bought some extra books for giveaways!
There will be at least 5 winners. Two US & Two INT.
To keep things open INT I am offering two of the eBooks that will be reviewed this week as well. May pick extra winners for eBooks depending on entries. 
 You can comment every day for extra points!

a Rafflecopter giveaway