The Way I Used to Be

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Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes. My heart was torn apart right from the first chapter! And as the story progressed, we gained insight into Edy's breakdown. She leaves her pals in the middle of life, gets drunk like there's no tomorrow, and sleeps with individuals to undo the effects that night's events had on her body and mind. In the first few chapters I loved loved Edy my heart felt for her. But then I just felt pity to look that Eden, she was completely transformed into this person who dealt with things other way and I did not liked that at all. I get her and why she did those things.😭 A single act can change your life forever. In Eden's case, the five minutes in which she was raped send her into a spiral of desperation and despair, so that there are times when she doesn't even recognize herself anymore.

Stories like Eden’s need to be told. They need to be told more than once. Books like this need to exist. And stories like this, stories this sensitive and courageous and breathtaking, need to be told by authors as tremendously talented as Amber Smith, authors who aren’t afraid to channel all of the emotions, all of the devastation, authors who can be both fragile and bold. It felt like a very natural progression for me, moving from visual art to writing. I always wrote--a lot of j …more What great questions--thanks for asking! As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM.

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The fact that Eden’s story was told in four parts—one for each year of high school—allowed the reader to see that nothing goes away. Trauma and pain and anger and regret and sadness don’t just retreat to be buried by other feelings. They simmer right under the surface like a second pulse. What happened to Eden doesn’t fade as she gets older. It takes on new shapes, ones with sharp edges, ones that cut and flay and destroy any sense of confidence she might have had. The things that she did and her way of coping was annoyingly painful. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and tell her to speak up, tell them. But i just watched her suffer and hurt everyone around her until she was left all alone💔 Still, I'd recommend this one because it effectively puts you into the immediacy of Eden's emotions--the pain, shame, and fear, as well as the feeling that you've been damaged beyond repair. And that you are unworthy, undeserving, and unlikely to ever be treated with respect and tenderness. The Way I Used to Be is a story about trauma and life after it. Eden is raped by her brother's long time best friend after he sneaks into her bedroom one night. Please be warned the description of the rape is extremely graphic and unsettling, but it made the story that much powerful and moving for the author to force reader's inside Eden's head during every single second of the few minutes that would change her life forever. I thought the rape would be the most devastating part of the story, yet I was GUTTED when Eden's mom walks in the next morning and finds Eden frantic and covered in blood but assumes it's because Eden got her period for the first time. I wanted to scream as Eden was unable to find her voice and tell her mom what happened because she was so terrified. However, this was only the beginning of what has easily become the most devastating story I've ever read. All that said, what’s my issue? The other characters may be shallow and the pacing off, but that should be the end of it if Eden’s story is valid, right?

there are just little things that smith adds to her writing that just seems to make this story that much more real. for example, eden barely ever says the name of the boy who raped her. whether it is out of denial or just genuine fear, i dont know. but i do know that it was a great way of subtly expressing her trauma. The lovely young lady gets raped by the best friend of his brother. Thirteen years old. How a brief period of time—just five minutes—can completely alter your personality and transform you into someone you never would have imagined becoming. What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and 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. Initial reaction: Man, this book hit my heart in so many places. It's a read that definitely hurts and has many angles that hit well on its subject matter, but it's not without flaws. In my full review, I hope I can expand on this. 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.

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The pacing in some parts of the books was too fast. We were robbed for many of the important scenes! When and how she started calling her parents by their names not Mom and Dad. Rose wrote a great positive review for this book and I just wanted to borrow her comparison to Ellen Hopkins. Hopkins is a much-loved author, but after liking one of her books, I soon started seeing them as torture porn. And I still think Hopkins's stories and characters do not have any depth, do not explore new areas or challenge you to think - they are one long misery ride through increasingly atrocious events (rape followed by drug abuse followed by their mom dying...). This book is a bit like that. I'll echo the author's resource note at the end and include the free hotline for the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network: 1-800-656-HOPE. If you need someone, please know help is available and confidential. If you think, like i thought, that this is a book about getting over being raped, you are wrong. Because how could anyone ever get over it? They don't, they just continue living with it. That's what this book is about. It's about the ugliness that comes after. The depression and anxiety and mostly emptiness. The desire to control emotions and feel something you didn't have control over. I don't know where exactly my tears began and when they stopped because this wasn't a beautiful book. It was messy and emotional and aggravating, because that's how it feels. I hate that just because you happen to be good at something,people automatically think that's what makes you happy,but it's not really like that, you know? It's not that simple.”