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.
MY THOUGHTS
This book wasn't what I expected it to be. I thought this was going to be a mystery, but it turned out to be a dull contemporary. It wasn't bad, but not much happened.
When Naomi takes a fall down the stairs, she wakes up without any memory of the last four years. She doesn't remember her best friend, her boyfriend, her parent's divorce, moving, or even skills like driving. She has to keep going to school and continue the extracurriculars she started before her accident, but it's hard to go on when you don't remember so much of your life.
I honestly expected this to be a mystery, though I'm not certain why. So if you are wanting to read a mystery, then don't pick this up. This book is really just a contemporary book. It's a coming of age story where the MC is dealing with memory loss. I did like this angle (even though I had some trouble with how amnesia was handled. More on that later) and it did make this book a little different than other contemporary YA books I've read. But while the book focuses a little on Naomi's memory, the last half of the book really just feels like a slice-of-life book and the pacing was a bit slow.
Naomi is an interesting MC. I didn't agree with a lot of her decisions, especially when it came to telling people things, but she's a teenager so she's bound to make mistakes. It is clear how she is struggling with her memory loss. To her, four years have passed in a blink. She has the memories of a twelve-year-old, but she's doesn't feel twelve. The book does delve into how she feels different from the pre-amenia Naomi (the Naomi of the memories she lost). She tries out new things and breaks away from people that she doesn't think are good for her. I wish the differences between the Naomis was explored more because I think that is an interesting idea. Could she be a different person without those four years? But I feel like this topic was dropped pretty quickly.
This brings me to my issues with her amnesia. [highlight to view spoiler] She remembers everything very quickly and fairly easily. It was pretty much SNAP, and her memories were back. Her personality didn't change at all when the memories were back (no one could even tell they were back). I expected more of the Naomi vs. Naomi thing, where the Naomi with her memories back realized how much she had changed or how odd her actions were to her, etc, but of course, that didn't happen. It just felt lackluster and was only used as a way for Naomi to hide the fact that she remembers everything again. [end of spoiler]
As far as relationships, I loved Naomi's relationship with Will (or, at least, Will's relationship with her). I loved their repertoire and they seemed like great friends, but of course, Naomi had to ruin that. This book does have romance but it did not read like a contemporary romance. Naomi has a boyfriend at the start of the book who she does not remember. But the book makes it clear that their relationship doesn't work, so she is interested in another boy, James. I didn't really like either boy, to be honest, but in both cases, the book really focuses more on what the characters think they want rather than what they really need. It was a different type of relationship than I am used to seeing in YA [highlight to view spoiler] and even though the book ended with Naomi not in either relationship, I oddly liked that because it didn't force an unbelievable high school relationship. [end of spoiler]
IN CONCLUSION
Overall, I found this book to really just be okay. It really just wasn't what I expected and it didn't focus on the elements that I thought it should have focused on. It is a little different than other contemporary books I've read, but the story kind of dragged and it didn't feel like much happened.
I hereby give this book
2.5 Stars
Meaning: I almost liked it, but not quite
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