When seventeen-year-old Ashley Watson walks through the halls of her high school bullies taunt and shove her. She can’t go a day without fighting with her mother. And no matter how hard she tries, she can’t make her best friend, Matt, fall in love with her. But Ashley also has something no one else does: a literal glimpse into the future. When Ashley looks into the mirror, she can see her twenty-three-year-old self.
Her older self has been through it all already—she endured the bullying, survived the heartbreak, and heard every ugly word her classmates threw at her. But her older self is also keeping a dark secret: Something terrible is about to happen to Ashley. Something that will change her life forever. Something even her older self is powerless to stop. (Goodreads)
I am not entirely sure how to start off this review because I found this book a bit of a struggle to read. It wasn’t a difficult read, it was just the emotions felt so raw that I felt like I was going back in time to when I was in school and I was being bullied. Of course, I never had an older me attempting to guide me the way Ashley did – Maybe I needed one? Despite the blast from the past that ensued, I actually enjoyed this book. I think that the author captured the feelings of the person being bullied perfectly.
Despite the fact that Ash was being bullied, I like the way that she still found positive parts to her life, rather than just seeing everything that was going wrong. I also think that it was fairly clever to portray the parents as the original bullies – because normally the parenting is where it all begins. As a child, you would hope that your parents would be on your side no matter what the case is, but in some cases it isn’t like this. I think every parent has the worry that their child won’t fit in etc. but how you deal with this fear is the most important thing. Just like how you deal with the bullies.
The message that the author brought across is an important one. Never give up fighting and don’t let other people define who you are. You are your on person and you can be whoever you want. I think most of us who go through the horrible Secondary School experience of bullying eventually learn this – the hard way.
I would definitely recommend this book to other people and I would read it again 🙂 I gave this book 4 stars.
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