I'm looking for books to add to my reading list that might give me insight into methods of expressing the emotions and thought processes involved in experiencing the world for the first time. My character is an adult with total retrograde amnesia (the sci-fi kind where all events and facts are missing, but everything else works just fine). I'll be doing plenty of encyclopedic and medical journal research, but I want to read some books wherein the author effectively captures and conveys first time experiences. These could be adult or YA. I prefer fiction, but welcome non-fiction suggestions as well. I need examples of coming off age and first love (this is where a well-written YA wouldn't hurt), new experiences in a strange land, fish out of water, man out of time, sexual awakens, actual stories about amnesia, obviously, and anything else you think might help. Thanks!
I don't doubt that. Just last week, someone asked if a romance was strictly needed in a novel. The short version of my answer was no, of course, but I added, "unless you're writing YA. I don't think you're legally allowed to leave it out in that case." If anyone knows of a good one, I'll dive right in, but I am not blindly buying a bunch of books with teen Ken dolls on the covers. Nope.
Marguerite Duras' The Lover (self-explanatory ), Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (ditto), The Body (coming-of-age short by Stephen King), The Martian by Andy Weir for the fish out of water thing and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient for the amnesia job.
