The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith [Book Review]

Eden spends four years of high school keeping one terrible secret. The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith makes you feel every one of them.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

I spent a good chunk of this book wanting to climb inside it, grab Eden by the shoulders, and tell her she didn’t have to carry any of this alone.

The Way I Used to Be is Amber Smith’s 2016 YA debut, and it understands exactly how trauma works on a person. That’s what makes it so hard to read.

Four Years of Saying Nothing

Eden starts high school as a good kid who has her life figured out. Then her older brother’s best friend sexually assaults her, and she doesn’t tell anyone. Not her parents. Not her friends. She tries to bury what happened along with the girl she was before it.

The book follows her through freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year, and that structure is Smith’s smartest choice. We don’t just get the immediate aftermath. We watch the damage seep into her friendships, her family, her relationships, and the way she sees herself.

Why Doesn’t She Just Tell Someone?

From the outside, it’s easy to list what Eden should do. Tell someone. Report it. Explain to the people who love her why she’s suddenly angry and distant.

But Eden can barely process what happened, let alone find the words. So she changes instead. She pushes people away and makes choices that hurt her and sometimes the people around her. It’s frustrating to watch, and it’s completely believable.

Sexual assault in fiction is sometimes used as shorthand for character development. In this book, it’s the root of everything, and Smith never lets the story move on. Which is exactly the point.

Taking Her Voice Back

Reclaiming your voice isn’t one big cinematic moment. It’s gradual and scary, and comes after years of convincing yourself that silence is easier.

The ending offers hope but doesn’t pretend that it fixes everything, or that an easy fix exists. Eden doesn’t get those four years back, but she does start getting control of her life back.

Final Thoughts

The Way I Used to Be is painful and bleak, and the middle wore me down. But that discomfort feels like part of the point, because Eden’s story isn’t supposed to be easy to sit through.

I’d recommend it, with the understanding that it’s a heavy read about sexual assault and it doesn’t look away. If you want more of Eden, Smith followed it with a sequel, The Way I Am Now, in 2023.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an advanced reader’s copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.