This is a reread for me with the intention to read and donate. I first read it when I was 17, the same age as Mia. Fully in love with a boy I’d been with for over a year at a time in our lives where we were deciding on where would be best to do creative degrees. Around the time of reading this, he had just accepted an offer at the other side of the country, and I’d decided to stay home. A lot of this book resonated with me then and still does now, remembering a lot of those feelings. Looking back and having read it again, it felt like some sort of closure knowing what I know now and how it all developed. Still brought a tear to my eye. I hope that, even though it’s 2009 book, someone else who’s going through something similar even today will read this and know that life is up to them to decide.

Me and that guy ended up being together for another 6 years, surviving distance and tragedy. Life has moved on quite a bit since (I last read it just under 10 years ago) but I want people to know, especially at that age, that whatever you choose, things will work out one way or another. You can get through the hard times.