Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication date: April 1st 2013.
If he had been with me, he wouldn't have died. Throughout their whole childhood, Finn and Autumn were inseparable—they finished each other's sentences, they knew just what to say when the other person was hurting. But one incident in middle school puts them in separate social worlds come high school, and Autumn has been happily dating James for the last 2 years. But she's always wondered what if... The night she's about to get the answer is also one of terrible tragedy.
Guest Post: Laura Nowlin.
Ten Things I wish I could change about my high school years.
This seems frivolous, I know, but when I was in high school only the rich kids had cell phones at all, and wi-fi was a rare and wondrous thing. I can only imagine how cool it must be to get into hilarious hijinks with your friends, and be able to post pics of your shananigins in real time. If we did something cool, we had to tell people about it later, and we probably didn't have photographic proof, because pictures were these paper things you had to pay to have made.
2. I wish I had broken up with my boyfriend.
Now, my high school sweetheart was not a bad guy by any means, but looking back I see how I only dated him for my entire high school career because I liked the idea of only having one boyfriend ever. If I had really been following my heart, I would have admitted to myself that he wasn't the one and only guy for me, and I could have possibly had a wider range of romantic experience.
3. I wish I had broken more rules.
I was a good kid. A really, really good kid. Sometimes as an adult I wish I had some of the when-I-was-a-crazy-teen stories that other people have.
4. I wish I had learned to drive.
In If He had Been with Me, Autumn manages to graduate high school without learning to drive. I managed to graduate from college and get married without a driver's license. I let a small anxiety grow into a massive mental block, and I wonder what the ego-boost of conquering my fear would have done for teenage me.
5. I wish I had admitted to others that I needed help.
As an adult I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, but as a teenager I hid my depressive episodes from my loved ones. I can only imagine how different those years would have been if I would have admitted my to struggle and gotten the help I needed.
6. I wish I had worked harder in Spanish class, and gone to Spain on the class trip.
I ended up minoring in Spanish, but I never did get the experience of full immersion, and now my skills are so rusty that I'll probably never be fluent.
7. I wish our exchange student had lived with us all four years.
Swantje lived with my family for ten months. She challenged and inspired me, and ultimately changed me forever. To this day I keep a picture of her by my writing desk.
8. I wish I had cared less about what other people thought.
I think everyone feels this way about their high school years. At the time, I claimed that I didn’t care what others thought, but when I compare that to how much I really don’t care now...
9. I wish I’d been less critical of my body.
When I look at pictures of my teenage self, I just want to grab that girl by the shoulders and scream, “Your stomach IS flat! It is! It really is! And you are not appcreiating how high your breast are! Your stomach is flat and your breats are perky! Go put on a string bikini and feel fabulous! Right Now!”
10. I wish I had written more.
To be fair, I think this is something I will always say about any time in my life. I guess it's nice to know that some things will never change.
16 comments:
I love this post! We all look back and wish so many different things, especially when enough time passes. It's been twelve years since I finished high school and there are so many things I wish I could take back, but mostly, like Laura, I wish I'd broken more rules. :) AND care less about the opinions of others. :)
I finished reading this book yesterday. It was so good and I cried like a baby.
Great post. I too wish I'd broken up with my boyfriend. We were together through high school and uni. I was lot like Autumn when I come to think of it.
Huh.. for some of those things I wish too. So strange to see your words written by someone else.. I wish I could send some of these to my teenage self :)
Wonderful post, Laura seems like someone I would love to read more from :)
I want to read this so bad! And the author is so funny. I totally agree with her on a few of these things. :)
Lovely post, Jasprit and Laura. The list is wonderful, some of it are what I wish I could've changed in my high school year too. I haven't heard of this book until now but I'm off to check your review now. Thanks for sharing this.
Glad i'm not the only one to look at my bikini's and think never again! i never believed my mother when she said that i WAS skinny!
Zemira (this one above) will drive me crazy with this book xD Yeah I'll read it soon. Anyway nice list. I wish I had broken more rules I was a nice kid myself. Thanks for sharing :)
Great post... I am definitely adding this book to my tbr list. And the top ten? Yeah, most of those would be mine, too. So strange. :)
#9 made me snort:) I didn't have any body issues in particular in high school, but I definitely had a flat stomach and perky breasts as well, I kind of wish I had shown them to their full advantage every once in a while back then. *stars down at slightly less perky chest* Dammit. Oh, and I totally wish I had worked harder in Spanish as well. I took 4 years and I can't remember any of it. I can pick out a word here and there, but after 4 years I should know way more than that!
"I wish I had cared less about what other people thought." Oh, don't we all! I think back on my teen years and think the same thing, but I guess that's just kind of the nature of a teenager. Sigh!
Great post. In Ireland we call it secondary school and I left 20 years ago. So, I also wish there were smart phones and that I now had photographic evidence of some of the crazy things we got up to. As much as I hated it back then, they were good fun times :)
Wow, this is such a lovely post! Still being in my teenage years, I can definitely see why this author would want to change some of her experiences. Like, doing something more crazy, for one. I'm a pretty studious student, a good kid just as Laura was. Maybe I'll have to go on a crazy teenage adventure before I graduate. ;) The Spanish thing is pretty intriguing to me as well. I'm in Spanish right now, and I just may have to join in on the trip to Spain, since it's something Laura regretted not doing.
Lovely post, thanks for sharing Jasprit! <3
Loved the things being shared on the guest post! I guess it's never easy for any of us to admit that we need help when we were hoping the struggle would quietly go away. And maybe I need to learn to accept my body shape and not to be critical of it. Thanks for the insight!
Ooh, what a great post! I wish so many of the same things myself and I think high school is a time we all wish we could change. It's also a time where our mistakes help us become the people we are, so it's good in many ways. I'm really looking forward to this book now, so thanks for sharing, Jasprit!(:
Oh my gosh, I think I would've embarrassed myself 5000 different ways if YouTube and Twitter were around when I was in high school. Other than that, great list! :)
-Maggie
This is a great guest post! Part of me agrees with #2 and I think all girls would agree with #9 - we're all way too hard on ourselves!
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