But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s whole world capsizes. What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she believed was the truth, now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she’s never felt so alone in her life. She knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened. But she can’t.
So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be.
Told in four parts—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year—this provocative debut reveals the deep cuts of trauma. 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, and while learning to embrace a power of survival she never knew she had hidden within her heart.@goodreads
MY REVIEW:
3 STARS
I had a hard time rating this book. I decided on three starts which still means I liked the book. I just really had a hard time with this one. I hate what Edy had to go through as a 14-year-old child. It was hard to read, it always is, it's hard to go through, it always is for the innocent one. I just really had a hard time with her not telling her mom right then, when she walked in the door that morning. So many of these kids are afraid to say anything, they don't think anyone will believe them. Especially if it's someone popular, someone in the family, a family friend, etc. But she had all of the evidence right there... right there..... I wanted to scream for her to call the cops and scream at her mom. Her parents were NOT very good to her, at least it seemed that way in the book. They weren't abusive, they just made Edy feel like her older brother was so much more important. It was the same way at school with Edy and bullies. Oh and how I loathe bullies too!
****SPOILERS****
--->EXCERPT<---
I don't know a lot of things. I don't know why I didn't hear the door click shut. Why I didn't lock the damn door to begin with. Or why it didn't register that something was wrong--so mercilessly wrong--when I felt the mattress shift under his weight. Why didn't I scream when I opened my eyes and saw him crawling between my sheets. Or why didn't I try to fight him when I still stood the chance.
I don't know how long I lay there afterward, telling myself: Squeeze your eyelids shut, try, just try to forget. Try to ignore all the things that didn't feel right, all the things that felt like they would never feel right again. Ignore the taste in your mouth, the sticky dampness of the sheets, the fire radiating through your thighs, the nauseating pain--this bulletlike thing that ripped through you and got lodged in your gut somehow. No, can't cry. Because there's nothing to cry about. Because it was just a dream, a bad dream--a nightmare. Not real. Not real. Not real. That's what I keep thinking: NotRealNotRealNotReal. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Like a mantra. Like a prayer.
Right after that Edy almost told her mom when she came into her room that morning, but her mom wouldn't shut her mouth for two seconds trying to hurry Edy to the breakfast table. To the table where her brother's friend Kevin sat eating and being loved by the family. Her mother ran around the room telling Edy that sometimes this happens with your period. Was she stupid? She had blood all over the sheets and her nightgown and bruises on her body and neck. I'm sorry, but I have never bled that bad all over everything to where it looked like a crime scene, but her mom was clueless. She couldn't see her child was sitting there in shock!
This brings us to the years of Edy's life in high school. The book takes us through each year, through the wonderful people she met and could have been or stayed friends with, nice boyfriends she could have had but she threw it all away. She started doing drugs, drinking and sleeping with a lot of boys with no feeling.
I hate all of this happened to Edy. If she would have only told when it happened, but we are not all the same. Some have to hide it, feel like they have to at any rate. Please don't hide this girls, call the cops, get it out. YOU WILL NEVER BE ALONE IN THIS FIGHT!
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1569543700
AMAZON LINK TO THE BOOK:
https://www.amazon.com/Way-I-Used-Be/dp/1481449354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465392440&sr=1-1&keywords=the+way+i+used+to+be+in+books
MY AMAZON REVIEW:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R31ST44C2OFJCH/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
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