If He Had Been with Me: The Tiktok Sensation

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She had to battle through a lot in this story, and I think she dealt with it the best way she could. I think there has only been one other book which I cried at but this book had me sobbing when I got to end. I understand that it’s all a set up and I can totally see how it contributes to piecing the last twenty to thirty pages or so of the book (which are truly the only parts that I really enjoyed about the book), BUT I FEEL BAMBOOZLED. The stories were timed right as to show their significance into why that memory had a specific impact to why Autumn was the way she was today. Sorry but we went through all that just to enjoy them for like 10 pages and then it got ripped from us in the worst possible way.

But what may surprise you is that part of you goes down this rabbit hole, welling up newfound regret, breathing in anger at the fucked-up world that honestly doesn't get better as you get older. I hated her "not like other girls" and "quirky" (that word makes me cringe every time I see it 🙄) attitude, and also how she just kept acting so weird around Jamie. What made these issues more realistic was that they weren’t just touched upon once, but they were followed upon Autumn’s progression through school and clearly showed an important part of the type of person Autumn became. So, is the reader supposed to believe that Autumn and Finny were just Meant To Be and Perfect For Each Other?Most of you are used to my reviews by now that you expect or maybe even anticipate "gifs" interjected drawing out how I felt while I was reading. There's a car accident in which one teen is thrown from the car and survives, while the other dies from being electrocuted at the scene. Never in my entire life would I forgive my best friend for hooking up with my boyfriend no matter how much she apologized. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

Her writing was littered with several beautiful passages and was delicate yet purposeful with each word puncturing a hole in my heart. Despite knowing this I continually tried to bury this awful fact at the back of my mind, I kept trying to make myself believe that the author would change the course of the story and that maybe she was just playing with us. Her friends were also a supportive bunch, and I enjoyed the fun they had and the time they spent together, but one particular point which I didn’t exp I never had an overwhelming urge to drop the book and start a new one, thankfully, but it could just be slightly boring at times. Because I asked the same questions, showered until I was numb, craved books because I couldn't stand my own actions in a blurry and unforgiving world, and feared I was on the path to being trapped in my own mind like my couch-ridden mother.While becoming annoyed at Finny and Sylvie’s growing relationship, Autumn grows closer to Jamie, and they even discuss marriage and their future careers. Also they hung out with friends who were on opposite sides of the spectrum to one another, so were seen to never mix or interact with one another. My mother married her high school sweetheart and now spends her time in a seemingly loveless marriage to a man who’s absent most of the time. She and Finny have been friends since birth because their mothers are best friends and Finny’s mother, Angelina, lives next door. And as time passes, Autumn will be forced to confront how else life might have been different if they had never parted ways.

This is the kind of YA title that makes a difference with its deep emotionality and lingering takeaways. Autumn and Finn had been best friends forever, they did everything together, until middle school, that they fell apart for some reason or another. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. I want to savor this wonder, this happening of loving a book and reading it for the first time, because the first time is always the best, and I will never read this book for the first time ever again.

If He Had Been with Me is a great many things: gorgeously written, heartbreaking, harrowing, complex, and oh so much more. When the impact occurs, she sails through the windshield and out into the night, improbably, miraculously, only suffering minor cuts on her arms and face. Both characters need each other to move on from their issues but disaster strikes and everything changes. Graduation comes and go and relationships change, feelings change, friendships renew and past events are discussed. Finn is such a sweet guy and is a devoted friend so I couldn't help but cheer for him to end up with Autumn even though they were both dating other people.

Senior year brings Finny and Autumn closer as they share a gym class and become partners in their activities. It was raining, of course, and with his girlfriend, Sylvie Whitehouse, he glided through the rain in the red car his father had given him on his sixteenth birthday. Brown on the edges and bright in other colors, their petals drooping downward, dying just as their lives have begun. I watched Autumn shut down towards the end completely and totally understanding the reasoning as though I was reading it through a young woman's mind.When she isn't at home agonizing over her own novels, Laura works at the public library, where the patrons give her plenty of inspiration for her writing. The beautiful cover and the description of this book lured me in and I couldn’t wait to read this story. We watch as she begins to observe Finn from a distance and begins to wonder what if things had been oh so different if one event when they were 13 years old was only seen as the same through both their eyes. I really wanted to love this book but it did fall a little flat for me unfortunately and I found myself skimming quite a bit of it. That is mental illness: the constant rewind and fast forward of feeling too much and not enough, the past being as palpable as the present.