— Laura Nowlin, If He Had Been with Me
★★★☆☆
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
[TW: MENTIONS OF SU*CIDE]
in if he had been with me, we follow the perspective of autumn throughout her four high school years until the summer before college. while going through the ups and downs of highschool with her group of misfit friends, she reminisces about her childhood best friend, finny, who she grew apart with after middle school.
reading if he had been with me will make you feel like a boat in an ever-moving body of water for the most part; but a big boulder will eventually emerge seemingly out of nowhere, that boulder will stop you in your tracks and possibly, most definitely, sink you.
to start: despite the simple writing, the sentences flow together nicely, thus the “ever-moving body of water.” the dialogue did become tedious as the pages flip since it almost always ended with “she says” or “he says,” but that’s just a minor nitpick and is, i guess, to be expected from a YA novel. autumn’s narrative is mundane and becomes repetitive at times (as in she continually repeats how her love for finny is so much more than her love for jamie—her current boyfriend at the time—, and how she will definitely marry jamie and have his babies after school).
speaking of jamie, what is with him and his need to marry autumn only to cheat on her with her best friend?? i found it so weird that all he ever wants from autumn is to marry and have a family with her, even though they’re in highschool. he literally wrote “all i want from life is to marry you and have our family” in her yearbook. i would be pretty freaked if a guy wrote this in my yearbook, boyfriend or not.
additionally, the book’s depiction of teen pregnancy also bothered me a bit. yes, this isn’t a book about teen pregnancy and nowlin isn’t obliged to write intricately about it, but the way it was portrayed put me off. a lot. it was entirely unnecessary for anybody to be getting pregnant in the first place; it was just material for autumn to get butterflies looking at finny hold a child. thereby preventing her from recommitting suicide because she found out she was pregnant with finny’s child after his death and the image of him holding a child made her shit out butterflies. it was genuinely disappointing that the only thing stopping autumn from committing again was because of finny’s child. autumn is so much more than her love for finny but it feels as though her whole existence is centred around him. understandable, but really two-dimensional.
(p.s., the way both autumn and angie have unprotected sex once and just get pregnant is completely unrealistic and kind of funny to me. the males in this book must have some insanely strong sperms, or the females are just extremely fertile. also, i thought angie didn’t want to be pregnant and was semi-worried after her friends pointed out she might be, but when she did get pregnant it just…was?? also guinevere?? big yikes.)
near the end of the book, jamie breaks up with autumn after four years of dating as he found out that him and sasha, one of autumn’s closest friends, had feelings for each other. autumn was obviously, and rightfully, unhappy about it. her grieving over the breakup allowed for the reconnection between her and finny, which was such good potential for character development. but oh man. autumn and finny ended up doing the exact same thing they hated jamie for: cheating.
during the period of reconnection between them during the summer before college, finny mentions that he is still in a relationship with sylvie but plans to break up with her after she comes back from her europe trip. good for him and all for not breaking up over the phone, but then him and autumn goes on and have sex before the breakup?? they just did exactly what they hated jamie and sasha for doing. it was specifically this that made me think there was quite frankly no character development at all, in any of them.
now for the “big boulder”—the ending. it came off as very very rushed. the author made zero effort into investigating the effects of finny’s death on autumn outside the grief. so, what is the most natural thing for a heartbroken girl to do? commit suicide of course. oh, she survived but still plans on doing it again and again until she succeeds? let’s get her pregnant. the last chapter made no sense to me at all and felt like a very abrupt end to the book. we barely get to see finny and autumn’s relationship as young adults as he dies right after they finally finally finally confess their love to one another.
(p.p.s., much of this book is autumn and jamie physically rather than autumn and finny. although autumn’s internal monologue is full of pining for finny. it would be great if we either, a, saw more finny and autumn so finny’s death actually feels significant, or b, we saw more of autumn’s growth after his death to make up for the lack of character development in their sylvie breakup sex era.)
all in all, meh book. 2.5 stars, the nostalgia (this book is akin to a lot of YA tragic romances that i’ve read when i was ten to twelve years old) allows for a rounding up to 3 stars. def recommend it if you are looking for something easy to read in one or two days, aren't expecting a groundbreaking hooha tear jerking book, and want a miscommunication trope romance!! :)
love, ys
[Text ID: If he had been with me, Finny would still be alive. If he had been with me, everything would have been different. But whose fault was it that he wasn’t?]