If He Had Been with Me

Finn and Autumn were the best of friends until middle school. That's when they seemed to grow apart. Finn was with the popular crowd and Autumn was with the not-so-popular crowd. Their moms were still friends and they were still neighbors, so they saw each other most days. Autumn has Jaime now and they have been going out for practically forever. So what if she feels a pang in her chest when she looks at Finn. She's happy with her new friends and her new life...right? Love this book. This will most likely be my favorite for the year. Laura Nowling just gets it. Everything is just completely brilliant in this novel. The characters are totally great and the story is heartbreaking and just so honest. "I want to savour this wonder, this happening of loving a book and reading it for the first time, because the first time is always the best, and I will never read this book for the first time ever again." She also totally gets being a reader. It always draws me into the book when the character is a big reader too. Finn and Autumn were the best characters. I always wanted a friend like Finn. I wanted that kind of easy friendship where the line between two people is blurred. It was devastating to me to see them not together. I could feel the pull in Autumn's chest each time she saw Finn. Even though she was happy with her other friends and Jaime, she wasn't as happy as she could be. Her heart still wanted more. It crazy how such a small little thing could drive people apart without them even realizing why. A simple miscommunication and two lives are left incomplete. It's awful, but I'm sure it happens all the time. Jaime was an okay character. I think I loved Finn too much to really give Jaime a chance. It seemed a little bit mean at times, but nothing too bad. He just wasn't a good fit for Autumn's eccentricity. Their little group seemed to function like any group of friends and they all seemed to work okay together. The only bit that I wasn't crazy about is when we read Autumn's story that she wrote. She was supposedly this really wonderful author, but the story was fairly juvenile. It wasn't bad it was just kind of basic and plain. This book is everything I want my realistic fiction to be. Just beautiful and honest. I knew how it was going to end early one, you kind of know from the first few pages. Regardless, you are still wishing and hoping that the outcome isn't what it seems to be. It was awful in a good way--in a I don't ever want this book to end kind of way. It made me laugh, it made me bawl my eyes out, it made my chest hurt and it made me close the book and immediately want to pick it up and start from the very beginning. It made me feel everything as if it was my own story. First Line: "I wasn't with Finny on that August night, but my imagination has burned the scene in my mind so that it feels like a memory." Favorite Lines: "No one is perfect." "'I think we're supposed to experience as much beauty as we can.'" "The icy wind burns through my gloves and my fingers ache until they fall numb and silent." "I can feel them in my mouth like three smooth pebbles."

It’s emotional, reflective, and it pulls you into that ache of “what if.” The nostalgic tone and the way it captures complicated closeness. It’s very feelings forward, and if you’ve ever had a relationship that lived in the in between, it hits. It also nails that bittersweet, dreamy sadness that makes you want to text someone you haven’t talked to in years. It leans introspective, so if you need plot driven pacing, it may feel slow at points. Some moments also rely on emotional inevitability rather than surprise. A tender, haunting read for fans of emotional coming of age and "what could have been" stories.

"Like all things that have become history, I now feel as if I always knew it, as if all through this story, it had been lurking in the shadows. The story underneath the story." This F'ing book!! It gave me a bad bout of depression laced with a hint of bipolar disorder then hope and ultimately sadness and curiosity...damn unresolved ending...Is she or isn't she??? I moped around the house while reading this book from the very first page and it wasn't until about 90(ish)% done that I started to feel anything other than despair and frustration. The beginning of the book starts off letting us know that a horrible thing will occur. So yeah, we were warned but waiting for it to come to pass was agonizingly slow (and slightly annoying) mainly because I wanted to smack Autumn (the quirky/beautiful MC) throughout the entire book. How blind can someone be to the fact that all your hopes and dreams are not only possible but completely within your grasp if you just get out of your own head and OPEN YOUR EYES??? "Finny, my Finny, kissed me. It was horrible. It was strange and wonderful. It felt like I was watching a meteor shower and did not know if it meant the stars were falling and the sky was breaking apart." The two main characters (Autumn and Finny) are EXTREMELY well formed. They are 3 dimensional, robust and without a doubt savory. Their relationship is exquisitely complex and undeniably beautiful. I manically kept watch on the page count. I wished desperately that I could freeze the moment and live within it a bit longer while simultaneously devouring each page because I just HAD to know what happened next....I read in bed. I read in front of the TV. I read in the bathroom and in the car BUT when I got to the end I cursed this freaking book because it was an unsatisfying (semi) Cliffy :-( Damn book! This heartbreaking, Coming of Age story deftly highlights how subjective our life experiences are. The writing is emotive, the characters and world building are excellently crafted and the sentiment is poignant and tragically beautiful. I think we all can relate to the cast of teens (and the Mothers as well) as they face the horrible truths of Adulthood. There are a host of Coming of Age realizations and each one made me feel like I was welcoming home an old, friendly pain that had slowly become inconspicuous by blending into the background din of Adulthood. Sound dramatic and fatalistic?? It does and this book has enormous amounts of both but the underlying sweet innocence of it all is heartrending and definitely on the sweeter side of bitter-sweet. I picked this book because I wanted to feel something. I wanted to feel something profoundly and this book delivered. My heart is still aching.

O livro é lindo e perfeito! Chegou antes do prazo. Ele é revestido em tecido, as impressões de arte são espetaculares, a pintura trilateral com a frase é de uma beleza sem igual. Eu amo tanto a história desse livro.

The miscommunication in this book was something else. I hated it and I loved it! The real eye opening part was how we all have our own version of events and we never really see the same things. I loved everything about this book except Jamie. Hated his guts and I’m so so glad he never ended up with autumn. Hated Sasha to how could she do that her best friend. I loved autumn and finny and my poor heart was broken by the end of this book. I wanted her to be with him and when it was happening I was cheering from the rooftops. The last page of this book tho had me screaming. How could it end just like that! I immediately brought both books in paper back and I can’t wait to read book 2. This book was everything I never knew I needed to read. I hope future readers feel the same too

Loved it. Do not recommend. One of the first books I ever cried for.

REVIEW IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH 🇬🇧 English review : This book completely destroyed me! The ending takes your heart with such surprise, for 400 pages you become attached to Autumn and Finny as if you've known them forever. We see their relationship evolve over the years, the highs and the lows. An unspoken love story that will break you to the very last word. Tip: read with a sad playlist for more emotion! Definitely one of my favourite books!This book completely destroyed me! The ending takes your heart with such surprise, for 400 pages you become attached to Autumn and Finny as if you've known them forever. We see their relationship evolve over the years, the highs and the lows. An unspoken love story that will break you to the very last word. Tip: read with a sad playlist for more emotion! Definitely one of my favourite books! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ STARS 🇫🇷 French review : Ce livre m'a complètement détruite ! La fin vous prends le coeur avec tellement de surprise, pendant 400 pages on s'attache à Autumn et à Finny comme si on les connaissaient depuis toujours. On voit leur relation évoluer au fil des années, les hauts comme les bas. Une histoire d'amour non dite jusqu'au dernières pages qui vous briseront jusqu'au dernier mot. Conseil : à lire avec une playlist triste pour plus d'émotions ! Définitivement un de mes livres préférés ! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ÉTOILES

I loved the book and it didn’t come damaged or anything but it came from Bangladesh which is probably why it took a while to arrive. But fully recommend the book!