The Way I Used to Be

December 14, 2015
According to RAINN, the largest anti-sexual-violence organization in the U.S., 80% of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows, and 68% go unreported. These statistics underpin Smith’s debut, which opens with 14-year-old Eden being raped by her brother’s best friend while her family sleeps down the hall. Kevin tells good-girl, band-geek Eden that no one will believe her, and she’s sure that he is right: Kevin is her brother’s teammate and roommate, and her family revolves around her brother. While Eden changes virtually overnight, no one knows what happened—largely, it seems, because no one wants to. Smith tracks Eden through her four years in high school, spotlighting her shifting relationship with her friend Mara, the caring boyfriend she lies to, and her increasing acting out with booze and sex. It’s painful to watch Eden disintegrate but also true to the double burden she carries—the violation of the rape and the weight of carrying the secret. The long-term view Smith takes of Eden’s story makes it all the more satisfying when she does find her voice. Ages 14–up. Agent: Jessica Regel, Foundry Literary + Media.

Starred review from January 1, 2016

Gr 9 Up-Eden is a quiet band nerd and a freshman when her brother's best friend, Kevin, rapes her. Eden's entire life is changed from that moment. Life no longer makes sense. She believes Kevin's threats and doesn't tell anyone what happened. The next four years of her life are shaped by that night in large and small ways. Eden struggles to relate to her best friend and most of her other acquaintances. The teen experiments sexually in an attempt to gain control, but her inability to relate and connect create a dangerous cycle she must confront in order to move on. Smith tells Eden's story in four parts: freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year. This is a poignant book that realistically looks at the lasting effects of trauma on love, relationships, and life. While the rape is discussed, it is not graphic, allowing for a wider readership. Teens will be reminded of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak. VERDICT An important addition for every collection.-Cyndi Hamann, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2016
Grades 9-12 Eden McCrorey's life before the incident was textbook awkward. A band geek and good student, she harbored a secret crush on her beloved older brother's best friend. But her life is overturned when, in her freshman year, that best friend rapes her late one night in her own bedand threatens to kill her if she tells anyone. She keeps the secret and soon finds herself using sex and boys to gain control over her own body. Slut-shamed at school, she distances herself from her best friend and a loving boyfriend while losing interest in music, academics, and her own future. Smith's debut novel is divided into four parts, one for each of Eden's years in high school, and follows a believable continuum of self-loathing as she struggles to process and eventually share the truth of what happened to her. It's a difficult, painful journey, but teens who have experienced rape and abuse will be grateful for this unvarnished and ultimately hopeful portrait. Eden's shell-shocked narrative is an excellent conduit for what Smith has to say.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2016
In the three years following Eden's brutal rape by her brother's best friend, Kevin, she descends into anger, isolation, and promiscuity. Eden's silence about the assault is cemented by both Kevin's confident assurance that if she tells anyone, "No one will ever believe you. You know that. No one. Not ever," and a chillingly believable death threat. For the remainder of Eden's freshman year, she withdraws from her family and becomes increasingly full of hatred for Kevin and the world she feels failed to protect her. But when a friend mentions that she's "reinventing" herself, Eden embarks on a hopeful plan to do the same. She begins her sophomore year with new clothes and friendly smiles for her fellow students, which attract the romantic attentions of a kind senior athlete. But, bizarrely, Kevin's younger sister goes on a smear campaign to label Eden a "totally slutty disgusting whore," which sends Eden back toward self-destruction. Eden narrates in a tightly focused present tense how she withdraws again from nearly everyone and attempts to find comfort (or at least oblivion) through a series of nearly anonymous sexual encounters. This self-centeredness makes her relationships with other characters feel underdeveloped and even puzzling at times. Absent ethnic and cultural markers, Eden and her family and classmates are likely default white. Eden's emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)

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January 1, 2017
The five minutes it takes her brother's best friend to rape high-school freshman Edy begin her transformation, explored over four years, into Eden--a promiscuous, angry, terrified, and brave teen determined to separate herself from "that girl" who stayed silent about her rape. The harsh immediacy of Eden's present-tense narration rings true, as does her complex journey of healing and maturation in this sweeping debut.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)