She lies to him about her age and he falls for her, but she finds herself unable to reciprocate in a way that he wants.īy junior year she is known for “sleeping around” with guys at parties, often men she doesn’t know. In her sophomore year, she meets Joshua Miller, an 18-year-old. Freshman year she is sweet but naive and confused, trying to find her way through high school while also figuring out what to do with her trauma. Across the four years Eden voice changes subtly and naturally, so the reader can tell how we got from point A to point B without the author spelling it out for us. Like a prayer.”Įden keeps quiet about the rape, feeling like she can’t confide in the people she once told everything to, including her friends and parents. That’s what I keep thinking: NotRealNotRealNotReal. Early in the book Eden says, “No, can’t cry. Even though there is some classic high school drama throughout the book – fighting with friends, first loves, breakups – the central message is clear, showing how trauma can take shape and what can happen if it goes ignored or unnoticed. The book is told in four parts – during her freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years – and shows Eden’s slow progression from the “good little girl” to a young woman who is willing to do anything to regain control of her life. Following the opening, the story slows down considerably, but the beginning is meant to always be in the back of the reader’s head. It’s an extremely well-written but graphic opening, depicting the immediate aftermath of rape and assault. The reader is thrown into Eden’s thoughts, feelings and actions-the feeling of being outside of her body, of her body not being hers, wondering what to do with the “evidence” of her underwear and bedsheets.
The book starts off right at the moment when her brother’s best friend rapes her the night before the first day of school. She has always been a good daughter, a good student, a good friend. “The Way I Used to Be” by Amber Smith follows Eden, a young girl just about to go into high school.
But it also demonstrates one young woman's strength as she navigates the disappointment and unbearable pains of adolescence, of first love and first heartbreak, of friendships broken and rebuilt, all while learning to embrace the power of survival she never knew she had hidden within her heart.Before I start this review I want to put a trigger warning in: This book contains a lot of talk about sexual assault, rape and substance abuse. Told in four parts-freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year-this provocative debut reveals the deep cuts of trauma. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she's supposed to tell someone what happened but she can't. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. What Eden once loved-who she once loved-she now hates. But the night her brother's best friend rapes her, Eden's world capsizes. Starting high school didn't change who she was.
In the tradition of Speak, this extraordinary debut novel "is a poignant book that realistically looks at the lasting effects of trauma on love, relationships, and life" ( School Library Journal, starred review).Įden was always good at being good.
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