A review by bendersreads
If He Had Been with Me (Collector's Edition) by Laura Nowlin

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book was not for me. The writing prose was fine, and I typically enjoy most YA contemporaries, but this is one of the ones I did not. I had a lot of issues with the main cast I won't go into, but there were two things I disliked the most.

Autumn and Sasha's friendship, which I should've liked as they were misfits from a former group of popular girls who branched away, stemmed from competition--at least on Autumn's part for most of the book. She seemed to delight in a lot of Sasha's pain and dismay, and it was weird. It was framed as Autumn just having more "confidence" when, really, she's a mean girl and got away with it. I don't think Autumn truly ever liked any of her female friends, which is sad. Later
Sasha ends up sleeping with Autumn's boyfriend, which proved to me that their friendship was never real. It was just a placeholder for something else.


Lastly, Autumn and Finn were both in toxic relationships for a lot of the book. Yes, Finn was clearly in love with Autumn, and Autumn discovered her feelings midway through her high school career, but instead of Autumn (or Finn) doing something about it, neither did nothing, and let everything just go on.

By the time they finally got together, I wasn't even able to root of them because
it came at the expense of Finn cheating on his girlfriend while she was in another country. Instead of Finn being mature and having the gall to break this off before the summer/during the summer, he just continued on.
Finn also had no development the entire book aside from being the nerdy kid to the hot kid.

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