#twiutb

The Way I Used To Be by Amber Smith 

This novel is not an easy read, so I don’t recommend this to anyone who can’t take reading about rape, trauma, alcohol, and many others. I read this book in two days and now I feel numb.

Right from the first chapter I knew I wouldn’t be able to put this book down. It just hit close to home, that feeling of being alone and not being able to tell everyone what you’ve been through. This book conveys that state of mind perfectly. 

The book debuts with Eden, the main character, a thirteen year old girl, being raped by her brother’s best friend. It then shows the passage of time, from the moment she was assaulted up until the moment she tells the police what happened. Eden lives in this constant state of secrecy and coldness to hide the fact that she is broken inside. She ends up destroying all her relationships because of distrust and the willingness to forget everything that happened to her. 

As Eden tries to hide what happened to her, she also ends up killing the girl she used to be. She doesn’t know what to do with her life, so as soon as some rumours get out in her high school, she slowly ends up becoming them. She lies to everyone in her life, cutting herself off, isolating herself. 

This book is very well written and it perfectly depicts the trauma of a teenage rape victim and how it affects her.