Library book: The Way I Used to Be #1 The Way I Used to Be Amber Smith

Publisher: Margaret K McElderry Books

Published: 03/22/2016

Pages: 338

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Review: Library book

Amazon

All Eden wants is to rewind the clock. To live that day again. She would do everything differently. Not laugh at his jokes or ignore the way he was looking at her that night. And she would definitely lock her bedroom door.

But Eden can’t turn back time. So she buries the truth, along with the girl she used to be. She pretends she doesn’t need friends, doesn’t need love, doesn’t need justice. But as her world unravels, one thing becomes clear: the only person who can save Eden … is Eden.

TW: Sexual Abuse/Rape. 

With that out of the way, this book is my top ten for the year. I was pulled in from the beginning, and once I started, I just could not stop flipping the pages. 

At first, I kept getting upset that she kept lying about little things and just wanted her to tell the truth. Now, as I kept reading, I understood why she was acting the way she was acting and why she kept lying. Eden captivated me, and I kept wanting her to get better. She needed to get the story out there.

Told over four years of school, we see the downward spiral that Eden finds herself in. One wrong choice after another, and as much as she needed to make the right choices, I understood why she couldn't. She lost a part of herself that night, her innocence. 

The entire time, I just wanted Eden's mother to find out what was going on with her daughter. I wanted Eden's BFF Mora to shake her and make her tell her what was going on. This book is a rollercoaster, and it has a lot of feels with it. 

 As we got to the end and Eden was talking to the detective, I felt my anxiety go up. With Eden's story, you wonder how many other young ladies and men go through something like this and never speak about it. 

  

Amber Smith is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of the young adult novels The Way I Used to Be, The Last to Let Go, Something Like Gravity, and The Way I Am Now. Along with her middle grade debut, Code Name: Serendipity, she has also contributed to the award-winning YA anthology, Our Stories, Our Voices. An advocate for mental health, gendered violence, and LGBTQ+ equality, Amber writes in the hope that her books can help to foster change and spark dialogue. She grew up in Buffalo, New York, and now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her wife and their ever-growing family of rescued dogs and cats.

 You can find her online at AmberSmithAuthor.com.