Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Over 50,000 copies of the author’s previous novel Elsewhere have now been sold, and this new novel should be equally popular. Set in the sort of American High School where money never seems to be anyone’s problem, it describes how 16-year-old Naomi loses all memory for the last four years of her life after cracking her head in a fall. While a previous boyfriend no longer seems quite so attractive a proposition, moody, mysterious 19-year-old James is duly fallen in love with instead. This does not please Will, a previous best friend who – can’t you guess? – gradually looks like becoming something more serious himself. And so it goes on: written well enough, moderately engaging, sometimes more subtle than it looks but fundamentally a story stronger on describing emotions than plot or character. Details of exactly how much work putting together a School Yearbook involves and what exotica pupils wear for their summer Prom may prove of more than general anthropological interest to British teenage readers looking in at a culture still so very different from their own.