However, Autumn’s friends support her desire to wear tiaras, even adding to her collection on birthdays and holidays. We watch her relationship with Jaime continue and her bonds with her "group" of friends get stronger. While I cherished the rare moments between Autumn and Finny that aided in ultimately bringing the two together in the end, the entire plot felt pointless. I still keep hoping that what I read was a lie and there’s going to be some miracle that says it didn’t happen the way it did.

If He Had Been with Me is a great many things: gorgeously written, heartbreaking, harrowing, complex, and oh so much more. First loves♡ TearjerkerI really wanted to love this book but it did fall a little flat for me unfortunately and I found myself skimming quite a bit of it. As the story follows Autumn and Finny through their high school years, they rarely interact outside of their "family" gatherings. It was honestly so sad, seeing what she was going through in her head, and it was actually heartbreaking. I liked how Autumn's depression was represented on page- it seemed very realistic and relatable and it was very well-written.At the end of senior year, Autumn's boyfriend breaks up with her, and Finny's girlfriend travels to Europe. There's something about Laura Nowlin's writing that reaches out and touches the heart in unexpected ways.

Her friends were also a supportive bunch, and I enjoyed the fun they had and the time they spent together, but one particular point which I didn’t expect at all, blemished my high opinion I held of some of them.Instead, we immediately learn that Finny, the presumed love interest, has passed away in a mysterious car accident, and that our narrator Autumn is left to grapple with her guilt. It’s a story which deals with issues of friendship, first loves and family in the most raw and intense way I have come across in a long time. Because I asked the same questions, showered until I was numb, craved books because I couldn't stand my own actions in a blurry and unforgiving world, and feared I was on the path to being trapped in my own mind like my couch-ridden mother.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I cannot hear her, but I see Sylvie tell them the cause of the argument, and I know, I know, I know, I know. I can feel the printed words seeping through my skin and into my veins, rushing to my heart and marking it forever. If you’re worried about giving this book a try because of the heart breaking story please don’t because Nowlin’s gorgeous prose is not one to be missed.The Story is told with flash backs into Autumn’s and Finn’s memories when they were younger alongside Autumn’s current progression in school, some readers may find confusing. When Finny gets out to check on her, he steps into a pool of water that has been electrified by a fallen power line. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. The main character likes reading and writing, and a few books and plays are mentioned, including The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Charlotte's Web, Domby and Son by Charles Dickens, Romeo and Juliet, and Wuthering Heights. While the memories they shared may have been the same they were different in how each of them perceived those memories to be.