50 YA Books We Want Adapted to the Big or Small Screen

Cover to Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. Image via Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Books for Young Readers.

29. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Technically speaking, this 2007 novel has already had an adaptation, if IMDb is to be believed. It even had the late Anton Yelchin in the cast. However, said adaptation was also made for Japan. If Americans can bring over The Ring and put out an original threequel this year, it’s totally possible to bring an original novel back across the ocean for an English adaptation, right? Right.

Anyways, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is Gabrielle Zevin’s second novel. Our heroine is Naomi, who wakes up in an ambulance with very little in the way of a memory, and it’s all because she tried to stop a yearbook camera from breaking.

So, not only does she have to handle all the normal teenage issues, she has to do it while trying to figure out who she is, why she has a boyfriend, what’s going on with her family, and why she’s a bit more interested in someone who isn’t her boyfriend. Admittedly, it’s a simple concept, and after The Fault in Our Stars, it might seem a touch basic — not to knock the works of John Green, but it’s hard to compare to dying — but there’s a lot of humor and a lot of interesting exploration to be had in this short novel.

Besides, Zevin herself adapted her novel into a screenplay once before. Hopefully she’d be willing to do so again.