Review: How She Died, How I Lived by Mary Crockett
Kicking off the new blog AND the New Year with an absolutely incredible YA book by Mary Crockett titled How She Died, How I Lived. Now this is going to sound a bit strange but I'm a sucker for books on really heavy topics. Topics like self harm, school shooting, kidnapping, etc. Basically if the book could be made into an episode of Law and Order SVU, Criminal Minds, or CSI then I am going to add it to my TBR.
How She Died, How I Lived deals with one such heavy topic: grief and survivor's guilt. The unnamed narrator and main character was one of five girls a classmate texted to attempt to lure them to meet him. Out of the five only one texted back- a sweet girl named Jaime. The classmate, Kyle, killed her.
The book follows the narrator as she copes with being one of the five girls Kyle chose to text that day. She is trying to cope with knowing that it easily could have been her that drove out to meet Kyle. It could easily have been her funeral everyone attended, her murder Kyle would be on trial for.
The way this book is written is really unique. Almost like a journal but without traditional entries. Some chapters are simply one sentence. Others are the usual length. I loved this style of writing, it really kept me interested. I felt as though I was thinking the narrator's thoughts, feeling her emotions along side her.
The narrator is in her senior year of high school and it's interesting and also important to see her struggle with her day to day life. She has to continue living, even with the knowledge of how things could have played out. After all, she didn't text back. She still is alive so shouldn't she make the most of it.
Following the story as she deals with the guilt of living her life when Jaime can't is a really important part of the book and it's not something many books deal with. It's done beautifully here.
There were a few things that I didn't like. Towards the end there were a few side storylines that I felt could have been left out. I understand why they were put in there, especially one dealing with Lindsey- the narrator's best friend and another one of the five girls Kyle texted. Not to give out any spoilers but there is a small side storyline with her towards the end that deals with a pretty serious topic. And while I understand what the point of it being there was I think it could have been done a lot better. It seemed to be thrown in as an after thought to address some of the behavior's exhibited by the character throughout the book and I feel like, because of the heaviness of the topic, if it wasn't going to handled more thoroughly then it shouldn't have been added in at all.
Those very minor issues aside I really did enjoy this book. I loved the story, the writing style, pretty much everything. I would definitely recommend it! I can't wait to see what else the author comes out with.
