Can’t stop thinking about memoirs of a teenage amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. There’s something about waking up in your own life but having it be completely unfamiliar to you that’s totally compelling. Like when Naomi comes home from the hospital (she’s been hit on the head and can’t remember the last four years of her life) and finds the food journal in her nightstand drawer listing every single thing she’s eaten in the past six months. Is she really the type of person who would do something like that? Or date the Gaterade tasting guy who shows up at her bedroom window? It’s scary to be in this life she doesn’t know anything about but it gives her the chance to look at her life in a really immediate way without her last four years of memories weighing it down.
My only complaint is that you’re totally set up as the reader to fall for this one particular guy and then he ends up not being who you think he is at all (I was thinking Jess from Gilmore Girls) and that was disappointing (because how can you not love Jess from Gilmore Girls? At least a little?).
The other book I can’t stop thinking about is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie– in part because everyone keeps talking about it, but also because I couldn’t finish it! It was SOOOO harsh. I was reading along thinking okay, I can handle that, I can handle that, that’s kind of gross but I can deal, I’m sure it’s going to get better any minute, the tiny ray of sunshine is just about to pop out, AND THEN HIS DAD GETS OUT THE SHOTGUN TO SHOOT HIS DOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t feel this is a particular spoiler since it probably actually only happens on page five or something, but the first five pages were really really long pages. Does it get better? Everyone loves this book — it HAS to get better right? I just know it’s going to win the Printz and I’ll have to read it despite my horror of shooting dogs. Why I was okay with his horrid life but not that of an innocent animal getting shot I’m not sure, but there it is.