Much twenty-first-century young adult literature written by women and featuring teenage girls has taken up the theme of memory loss. Typically, the protagonist’s amnesia is related to some kind of trauma, an accident of some kind—anything from falling on the steps and hitting your head to a devastating car crash.
Here are some notable examples:
Gabrielle Zevin, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (2007)
Mary E. Pearson, The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008)
Cat Patrick, Forgotten (2011)
Michelle Hodkin, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (2012)
Megan Miranda, Hysteria (2013)
Natalie Richards, Six Months Later (2013)
Shelly Crane, Wide Awake (2013)
E. Lockhart, When We Were Liars (2014)
Jennifer Armentrout, Don’t Look Back (2014)
Alexandra Sirowy, The Creeping (2015)
Eileen Cook, With Malice (2017)
Kara Thomas, That Weekend (2021)
Some bloggers have noticed this trend, and there is an extensive Goodreads list about YA novels and amnesia. Indeed, lists are plenty (see Dobrez & Rutan and Lipinski), but critical explorations are few: Alison Waller’s “Amnesia in Young Adult Fiction” (2016) is the lone exception.*
