The way I used to be, by Amber Smith, is a contemporary set in high school, where a young girl deals with trauma and struggles to cope with it. Heartbreak and trauma, breaking and healing again, identity, resilience; this book has it all, and I hope you’ll give it a try after reading this review.

High school was a big shift for everyone, but it didn’t change Eden much. She was still the same girl everyone knew her to be. Until one night, everything changed.

A nightmare had befallen on her life. Her entire world shifted, and she could only wish it were a dream, but it wasn’t. It was real.

At first, she tries to tell people, she tries to tell her loved ones, but her voice disappears every time she got close. She had to keep it a secret, and those shattered bits, left behind from that night, seemed to break more, with each second she hides her damaged heart and broken pieces.

Eden tries to pick up her life from there, but she struggles to go back to the way it was, before it happened; and she knew that nothing could get her back to the way it was before, or to the way she was.

 As Eden struggles with the aftermath of that night, she not only struggles with the long-lasting effects of trauma, but with all other aspects a high schooler suffers from, broken friendships, broken hearts…and her trauma seems to affect all of it.

All she needed was for life to go back to the way it was, but that was far out of reach.

She could never get back to the way it was, so instead, she changes completely.

She shifts from her good girl phase, and becomes a whole new person, a different person, as different as possible. She needed to get away from the past, and from the girl who allowed such a thing to happen, and the only way to do that was to shift out of her old skin, and put on a mask.

Will she ever get past it all and live a normal life? Would she ever make peace with what happened, or more importantly, herself? Would she ever trust again? Read this book to find out.