THE START OF ME AND YOU (Review)

Title: The Start of Me and You

Author: Emery Lord

Star Rating: 4* out of 5*

Would I Recommend It? ABSOLUTELY.

In all honesty, I was apprehensive about this book. The first book I read by Emery Lord was WHEN WE COLLIDED, and that still remains one of my all-time favourite contemporary books, even from back in 2016. I adored it. Late last year, I read THE NAMES THEY GAVE US and was a little disappointed, even though I really enjoyed most parts of the book. For me, it didn't live up to WHEN WE COLLIDED. But THE START OF ME AND YOU, a YA contemporary like her others, lifted my expectations right back up, and I adored every single page.

***

Paige starts a new year of school right after the loss of her short-term boyfriend, Aaron. After a summer of grieving him, suffering with anxiety and depression, she is determined to start a fresh year surrounded by friends and taking chances. The book opens with her talking with Ryan Chase, who understands her pain, but advises her that everyone has to go on, their life still exists to be lived. As her long-standing, recently single, crush, Paige hangs on his words. So, she devises a plan--to date, to take up an extracurricular activity, to participate and to socialise. Her dating plan is a very touch-and-go and guilt thing for Paige, after losing Aaron. The grief she feels is deep, despite only dating him for two months. For her, I think the grief was more about how young he was and whether he died with a smile on his face after jumping off a bridge with friends, more than the love lost.

Her plan interconnects so many things. Through her dating plan, she finds herself sitting near Ryan Chase in one of her classes. There's always that one class in high school based contemporaries that sets the timeline of the book, a trope I love. For this book, it was English Lit. By chance, Ryan is moved, and switched with his "nerdy" cousin, Max. Max is not only the gateway to Paige's other checklist item--an extracurricular activity--but also the rock she needs for her grief. Through Ryan, she meets Max. Through Max, she joins the QuizBowl team, an activity that really brings Paige out of her grief-formed shell. Through socialising, Paige attends a party where she realises that Max may actually be a great friend for her, and not just a way to get to Ryan.

Something I adore in this book is the constant support system. Not only are her friends there for her, but Paige has a deep bond and loyalty to her friends to always be there for them. When one of her friends goes through a breakup, they all go comfort her together. Outside of her friends, Paige has a grandmother whose dementia takes strong grips on her, but she writes down everything important that Paige speaks about. As her friendship group and support grows in this book, so does Paige's faith in life again.

Aaron died in a lake accident. He was messing around with his friends, jumping into the water, and so this brings symptoms of PTSD for Paige. But she's always liked swimming, and the aftermath of Aaron's death tries to overrule that. Another item on her list is to swim again, to conquer her fear of the water.

Over the course of the book, it comes to Paige's attention that Max isn't just a friend. He's there for her the most; the understanding character to every problem she has. Despite being surrounded by her group of three friends, Max is something else for her. An element that I loved about this book is Paige's home life. Her parents begin dating again after divorcing years before. This becomes a complicated thing, and as a child whose parents divorced when I was younger, I can confirm Paige's resentment and hostility towards the idea. It would be awful but it added so much more to the story. It added strength to the family when they went through their own hardships. It added different confidantes for Paige.

The book takes place roughly over a year, and during that time, Paige learns, little by little, that life really is worth living even after parts of what you know leave for good. As someone who suffers with a lack of motivation and anxiety, this is a book I needed to read. I got to see an incredible, realistic protagonist fear a lot but still try. I got to see the incredible support system that she has. Hope has a way of staying alive in this book.

My lack of five stars is down to the fact that there was little diversity in the characters, and how Ryan Chase is a very cliche name for the popular boy, and was quite cliche in his ways, even though he had his relatable side. I'd like to have seen more about Paige's interest in script-writing, too. There was a lot of backstory to how she got into it, but not so much of the interest happening in the present duration of the book. Otherwise, I would recommend THE START OF ME AND YOU to any contemporary reader. Emery Lord has a way of total immersion with her characters on the page, and it's impossible not to get lost in her stories.