Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Book excerpt: From the author of Elsewhere and the Birthright trilogy, Gabrielle Zevin's Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is an imaginative YA novel all about love and second chances. 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 get all his inside jokes, and maybe he wouldn't be so frustrated with her for forgetting things she can't possibly remember. She'd know about her mom's new family. She'd know about her dad's fiancée. She wouldn't have to spend her junior year relearning all the French she supposedly knew already. 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. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.