In Some Other Life By Jessica Brody Book Review
“Choices don’t define just us. They define everything around us. When we make a decision , we don’t only decide for ourselves, we unknowingly decide for every soul connected to us. It’s impossible to do anything without affecting the world around you.
That’s what makes choices so significant. And also what makes them so destructive.”
About
Author: Jessica Brody
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
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Synopsis
A fresh and funny novel about how one different choice could change everything.
Three years ago, Kennedy Rhodes secretly made the most important decision of her life. She declined her acceptance to the prestigious Windsor Academy to attend the local public school with her longtime crush, who had finally asked her out. It seems it was the right choice―she and Austin are still together, and Kennedy is now the editor in chief of the school’s award-winning newspaper. But then Kennedy’s world is shattered one evening when she walks in on Austin kissing her best friend, and she wonders if maybe her life would have been better if she’d made the other choice. As fate would have it, she’s about to find out . . .
The very next day, Kennedy falls and hits her head and mysteriously awakes as a student at the Windsor Academy. And not just any student: Kennedy is at the top of her class, she’s popular, she has the coolest best friend around, and she’s practically a shoo-in for Columbia University. But as she navigates her new world, she starts to wonder whether this alternate version of herself really is as happy as everyone seems to believe. Is it possible this Kennedy is harboring secrets and regrets of her own? A fresh and funny story about how one different choice could change everything, Jessica Brody’s In Some Other Life will keep readers guessing, and find them cheering for Kennedy until the final page.
Review
Spoilers Contained Below
To those who wished they had some other life,
When I first picked up this book, I thought it was going to be a modern day spin on the Wizard of Oz because of the shoes in the background and the title itself. In a way it was kind of a spin on it, but not really because this book really followed it’s own sort of plot, which I highly appreciated. I also liked the storyline more because it was something that was slightly unexpected.
Kennedy Rhodes is your all-time, full American, hard-working girl. She lives in Ohio and goes to Southwest High School and runs the three years in a row award winning school newspaper, the Southwest Star. During her freshman year, her best friend Laney and her walked into the newspaper writing room by accident when they wanted to join a club. They stayed for the meeting and found a love and passion for the paper. Through lots of effort, Kennedy was able to save the newspaper so much to the point that it was award winning each year. But this is her last year as the chief writer for the Southwest Star, so she feels all this pressure to maintain the newspapers winning streak. She even recieves letters from the printing press company for her to stop asking so many questions and being worried. That’s when you know you’re committed to something. And just like any other senior in high school, she has her whole future to think about;She has to start thinking about which college she wants to go to, apply there, and do an interview to get in. And anyone who says senior year isn’t crazy, is crazy 😆. Senior year is by far one of the hardest years in high school because there’s all that built up responsibility to have your life figured out within the next year before you graduate and “enter life.”
And Kennedy is feeling the pressure down to her bones.
But she also feels remorse and regretful.
She goes to a rundown school where literally everyday she has to shake and hit her locker to open it up. The cafeteria smells like bologna and the tables at her school are half broken and half gum underneath it. Not too far across the pond is another school called the Windsor Academy (WA) where life is grand with perfect green grass, an internet based school management system, high class food, and where students have the most pristine uniforms. As emphasized by the school, they have an 85% acceptance rate for their students getting into Ivy League schools. It just seems like the perfect dream school. I would found it kind of sad how Kennedy would drive a certain route every morning to school just so she could catch a glimpse of her “dream” school. It was also kind of cringe worthy when she sat at the traffic light and would hope it wouldn’t turn red just so she could stare at the school longer. Or I found it kind of disheartening that she would follow all these people on social media from WA like Coi_Coi_55 or Luce_the_Goose because it gave her some respite and insight as to the perfect WA life because she didn’t go there. It was just overall sad how much she was pinning for that life—-that she would just feed that gnawing hunger in her for WA. It was kind of an unhealthy addiction.
But I could get why she would do all those things. After all, she was accepted into the school her freshman year. But she declined.
FOR A BOY.
Honestly, if her parents knew she got accepted and she declined for a BOY, her mom or her dad would have hit her upside the head and asked her what she was thinking. My parents would have done that to me! 😆 (I’m joking, they wouldn’t). But still they would have been angry that I would have picked a boy rather than an education. I mean, all parents tell their kid never go to a school based on a boy! It’s kind of the parent college motto, “Don’t follow your boyfriend to school,” or “Don’t start college with a boyfriend.” And it’s sound advice because if you pick a school just because a boy, or in Kennedy’s case, if you pick a boy over a school, you aren’t really doing what’s best for YOU. And because Kennedy kept that secret from her parents, she felt that regret everyday in wondering what if she accepted going to WA rather than choosing Austin, her 8th grade crush. Honey girl, 8th grade crushes don’t last forever. And if it did, you could have gone to WA and did long distance with him. But she said long distance would be hard and wouldn’t have lasted, which I get. But still. A BOY?
An especially a BOY that cheated on you with your BEST FRIEND.
Ooooh. OUCH!
Like the whole time when Kennedy was running around in the beginning of the book, trying to be in charge of the newspaper and juggle making time for her boyfriend and all that, I was LIKE, girl, he’s cheating on you with your best friend!!! It was literally right in her face. There’s no way it’s coincidence that her boyfriend when to a coffee shop, had coffee breath, and you best friend also went to the same coffee shop and had coffee breath. Kissing much? I felt bad for Kennedy! And there’s no way, your boyfriend likes some immature fart show and says this one liner and then your best friend says how much she likes the same show and how she says the SAME one liner. And if that didn’t clue in Kennedy, your boyfriend and your best friend were acting weird about the whole thing. And when Kennedy asked Laney to go watch the show with Austin because Kennedy couldn’t, Laney was blushing in her guilt because she knew she shouldn’t go watch the show with Austin because they’ve been already seeing each other. And I felt horrible when Kennedy was trying to be the good girlfriend to go watch the show with Austin after her dad’s gallery show, and she caught them kissing! WOW! I could have saw that from a mile away and I just felt my heart drop for her because she spent 3 1/2 years with the dude and gave up her WA spot for him. And there he was macking lips with the best friend.
I felt bad for Laney as well because she said it never meant to happen. I believe that.
That totally went against girl code. Let’s talk about girl code. I understand it’s girls before bros and that you never date your friends exes. But for me, I personally believe you do girl code to an extent because you never know who you fall in love with and who I’m I to stop my best friend or any friend from falling in love with the right one if that one was an ex? Do you follow girl code? Or if you’re a guy, guy code? So I understood that Laney really never meant to fall in love with Austin—-that it just happened—-and it does happen. But it will hurt for a while because it was an ex, but if a friend really cared about you and wanted the best for you, they would accept the relationship. I think what made it worse was the fact that they both kept it a secret from her for that long. Austin could have broken up with her and then after a few months, Laney could have broken the news that they were dating. I think that would have hurt less than the cheating, it’d would have still hurt, just not as much as the sting of betrayal.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t tolerate cheaters.
The whole cheating thing put Kennedy through a whirlwind of emotion and after she had such a great time at her dad’s gallery show.
The dad was such a fun, creative, and artistic person. I liked the whole idea of taking pictures of peoples eyes and blowing them up to look like different things like lakes or planets—–literally subjective to the eye. But I liked how Kennedy saw her eye with spiderwebs and how her dad would say her eyes were magical and brought good luck and wishes. Then he bought the painting for her and put it in her room and I thought that was so sweet.
“Flip a table!” Dad calls after me as I head for the front door.
“Destroy a chair! Crash a car! No, wait, don’t do that!”
(pg 63)
The dad had me in hysterics 😂
I give Kennedy a lot of credit for going to her interview for Columbia after just dealing with the cheating scandal in her life. She was suppressing her feelings a lot and it didn’t help that she didn’t tell anyone about it. The lady who interviewed her really had a stick up her butt. Like Kennedy was trying so hard to make small talk about the pictures and the plant and to be nice to the dog. How in her right mind was she supposed to know that picture in the hall was from Africa or that it was about hard times with elephant poaching. Or how was she supposed to know they type of plant that lady had? Or let alone know that the dog responds only to German? Like lady, those things aren’t normal, so don’t even come for her 👏🏼
If Kennedy was already feeling down, her hopes shot to the ground from not impressing that woman. And she couldn’t stop thinking about Laney and Austin the whole time during her interview and I was rooting for her saying, “get it together girl, you’ll get through this!” But the question, what’s your biggest regret? Really? That was a trigger waiting to happen. Kennedy burst with emotion and I was shaking my head for her—-in sorrow that she kind of messed up her interview. She would have done better if she was in a better mental state.
Kennedy bolted from that lady’s house, and where does she go? Windsor Academy to beg for a spot because she made the wrong decision—that that was her biggest regret. When she’s in the office, she meets scruffy, scraggly, cute boy named Dylan Parker who wants nothing but to get out of WA. Polar opposites, anyone? But I felt just overall bad for Kennedy because she begged and cried for a spot and I think we’ve all been there where we made a decision that we wished we could take back or that we always wonder what-if we done this or that differently—chose differently—-I just felt so much for her.
I felt even more for her when she bonked her head falling down the stairs.
But you know, it wasn’t a painful fall, it was a life chaining fall.
Kennedy, Crusher, Rhodes wakes up in this alternate “dream” universe where she accepted that WA spot al those years ago. In this life, she is the top of her class, literally “crushing” everything and she attends many clubs. She also has this pact of no boyfriends, but has amazing friends like Coi_Coi_55, whose real name is Sequoia and Luce_the_Goose, who’s real name is Lucy.
I just found it kind of weird but interesting how she’s friends with the people she literally idolized from social media. It seemed fitting though, considering this was her alternate reality. I found it funny how the only thing that stayed the same from both universes was her brother, Frankie, and his love for all things science. Bless his heart, for waking up Kennedy in the middle of the night or always nagging her about how he was different in this world. Then he gets this big aha moment that he’s some universal constant, and Kennedy’s unimpressed, like “is that supposed to mean something to me,” kind of thing. I liked Frankie. He’s a good brother and was there for her when her world flipped upside down. I think for Kennedy’s sanity, it was good that she had a constant in her life that could help her understand and navigate this parallel universe.
Kennedy was loving this world where she was on top of everything and where she could go to school, learning at pristine desks, lavish libraries, and eating decadent delicacies from the cafeteria. The cafeteria was amazing within itself. I thought of it more as a food court and who doesn’t love a food court? Anyway, everything might have seemed grand and dreamy, but then Kennedy started to notice all these little things in this universe that was unlike what she has known.
For one, the school work was ten times more arduous and strict. Kennedy just hit her head and she had to still turn in an assignment and the teacher was hesitant to accept her late work even though she had a valid excuse for it. If that was any other school, that late work would have got turned in a week later without hesitation whatsoever. And then her laptop, excuse me, her WA laptop, gifted by the school, would always ping with notifications for assignments that she would do. It seemed kind of daunting with all the things that would stack up on her assignment list. For my school, we have an online database too and assignments that we get notified to turn in. But we don’t get as much assignments like the students at WA do and they’re in high school. Kennedy was also highly confused because most of the assignments she had would be abbreviated and in code. But yet somehow, Kennedy still managed to do her work in this world and stay on top of her class without really having been in that world for long. I thought that was highly impressive.
And Kennedy thinks she’s all impressive too and she’s having a grand old time.
Until the school work became difficult.
I found it kind of funny how Sequoia gave Kennedy this odd look in the cafeteria when she didn’t get coffee. Then after the first full day, Kennedy had a massive headache and she told Sequoia she never had coffee, and Sequoia changed lanes in the blink of an eye to go to the nearest Starbucks to feed her caffeine levels! Does coffee help you function better? Unpopular opinion, but I’m not a fan of coffee . . . yikes. Oh well.
But then there was this whole moment with Sequoia where they talked about all the pressure they feel from school. Sequoia says:
“Do you ever feel like a racehorse?”
I’m not following. “A racehorse?”
“Yeah. Like someone has invested all this money in you, everyone is watching, but no one really cares what you do or how you do it, just as long as you cross the finish line first?”
(pg 181)
There was something so vulnerably sad about the way Sequoia spoke. And yet, I understood where she was coming from. She felt like in her family, she meant nothing. Her parents would invest all this money into her school work, hoping that she would get into a good college and that’s all they ever wanted for their child. The parents never cared if she struggled as long as she got into the Ivy League college—-the “finish line.” Sequoia’s a person. She’s not a horse that the parents should just invest money into and hope that she can handle all this pressure and to be victorious. That’s too much pressure for any one. And it’s always about the finish line. People always want the best for you and that you get to the end first. They don’t understand the hardships that gos in between and the work that gets a person to that finish line. They don’t understand the drum-beating heart, the dripping sweat, or the rapid pulse, all they see is the person came through first. And that’s not what should ever matter in life—coming first. It’s about getting there at a pace and rate that works best for you.
And I think schools nowadays don’t get that. They put so much pressure on students to be victorious or to go to the best schools, that they don’t understand that students work their butts off everyday and every second to do that, and they have to stop pushing us too far. Heck, Sequoia and Kennedy took sleeping pills and other pills. And it just seemed so reminiscent of real life in how student’s are so pressured and stressed with anxieties that some students do take pills. And I can’t state how it’s kind of disheartening that we have come to pressuring kids so much to the point of taking pills to bring them relief.
But then we have Lucy.
This whole time, I’m thinking Lucy took her life. Sequoia would always cry when Lucy was mentioned and she would never bring her up. And then with the whole idea that Lucy stopped posting on social media, just made me believe that even further. But no. She just cheated on a test.
Sequoia and her overdramatic crying!
I’m happy Lucy was alive. But now it posed this great mystery in the book about who would be selling tests to students. Then the Dean threatened to dock a percentage from all the students if the perp doesn’t come clean. I don’t think you can legally do that in real life, but this was a fictional story. Instantly, Kennedy’s mind went to Dylan who was smirking in his seat, amused at everyone’s worry.
He has a sick sort of humor. But he’s cute.
Dylan Parker. Forced to go to WA because his dad was an alumni and he’s rich. Doesn’t want to be there, but is very smart, 20th in his class, and loves to hog his space in the library. I couldn’t stop laughing at that whole claiming territory in the library scene where Kennedy sat down at a spot and then Dylan came over and was like that’s my spot. Then they tried to irritate the heck out of each other to drive the other away. Kennedy put her feet up and then blasted her music. Instead of being angry, Dylan swayed his head and danced to her music 😆. Then he chewed his gum loudly. When that sucker popped and his spit flew on her, she got up and stormed away. I was like, no Kennedy, don’t let him win! I knew Dylan would be feeling satisfied from beating her.
But he’s such an honest to good person in being semi-nice to Kennedy. He irks her in the best way and wanted to help her find the perp, even though Kennedy made it clear to him that she thought he was the one selling the tests.
I loved the moment when they meet at Peabody’s—the alleged coffee shop Austin and Laney went the morning Kennedy found out the two closest people in her life were seeing each other. I liked how Dylan talked honestly to her in saying her always saw her as a pristine sucker for rules, so she took the chocolate from the donut she got and smeared it across her skirt. Dylan was like, “That turned me on.” I guess there’s not a lot to turn Dylan on 😏. I also liked when Dylan was like “I had a thought,” and Kennedy was like “Did it hurt?” I really liked their relationship and playful banter.
And guess who showed up at Peabody’s?
The cheaters themselves. Well, not in this life.
Austin and Laney were all love-sick and they were sitting on the same side of the booth and Austin and Kennedy never sat on the same side of the booth. I felt really bad for Kennedy because she was witnessing her friends, again, happy in love—-happier together than Austin was ever with her. That’s gotta hurt in some way. Seeing them together like that made Kennedy realize how maybe in every other life, Austin and Laney were meant to end up together. It made her reflect about her reaction to them in her other life and how she could understand that it truly just did happen. And she couldn’t be angry at them for falling in love. I also think seeing them, made her realize that Laney was always her rock to lift her up, but no one was Laney’s rock. But Austin was, and that made Kennedy feel inner peace in knowing that, yes, they did cheat on her behind her back, but they were good for each other and supported one another. It took a good friend to come to that conclusion. I knew Kennedy would.
During this scene, Kennedy gazed intently at them, but then she asked Dylan if he believed in the multiverse theory. All I could think of was The Flash [if you know, you know 😉. Dylan asked her if she thought about all those things—-other versions of her life. Then Kennedy started to reflect about all the what-ifs in her life. and then, Dylan responded with:
“And?” he prompts. “What have you come up with ? Is this the best possible version of your life? Are all those other Kennedys Crushers, too?”
(pg 351)
And Kennedy says, she’s not sure she was.
And this quote for me, just struck home for the storyline. No matter what you decide in life, no matter how many versions there are, you have to live with the decisions you make and to accept that this is your life. Sometimes your decisions might be wrong or feel wrong, but sometimes they are really redirections in life to better things that were meant to happen. And Kennedy was always stuck on this regret of choosing wrong and wishing for this other life that she thought would be the “best possible version,” but her idea of her dream life was slowly diminishing.
Kennedy started to see this parallel life for what it really was—-all the change in her life She never started the newspaper club in Southwest High, so she had no newspaper awards hanging in her room like she did before. Southwest High also never had the award from the newspaper, instead having trophies for wrestling. And it just went back to the idea that if Kennedy never went to Southwest High, she would have never found her passion in life—-journalism. She might be living this other life, but she’s not very happy because she’s not doing the thing she discovered that brought her that happiness. By going to WA, she settled for economics as her interest. Economics out of all things. That’s far from journalism.
And then it hits home—-literally. Her home life had vastly altered (except for Frankie). No longer did her mom practice on her own or received that promotion, but she worked from home. In her old life, the mom bought a Prius with her pay raise and gave her old car to Kennedy. So in this life, there was one moment where Kennedy took the Honda, thinking it was her car, and the mom got furious with her because she thought Kennedy was acting like some self-entitled teen, when really she was just confused.
From the hints that was also thrown around about the dad, I knew something was up. No way Jose was the dad in the garage for two whole days and no way did she not even see her dad once. That said fishy to me. No one works that hard. And there was just something distant about the way the dad would reply to Kennedy’s texts or calls—- like he wasn’t there. I had a huge hunch that he wasn’t really in the basement. Did you?
Then Kennedy actually went downstairs one day and saw the cardboard boxes and dusty motes from the sky. She was literally aghast with shock. Kennedy might be “crushing” things in a lot of aspects, but she really doesn’t know how to pick up context clues—-first her friends cheating on her in her old life and then the dad not being there. The fact that the dad worked for a cooperate company really struck something in Kennedy and me. The dad said he would never work for a cooperate company no matter how much money they offered him, but in this life he had to work for a cooperate company. I think this Kennedy didn’t know why her dad would give up on his dreams of being a freelance photography, but, hello, WA tuition isn’t cheap!
But then Kennedy understood that her dad sacrificed his dreams and his happiness for his daughter to have the best education she could have. In her other life, her dad was happy—-cooking chocolate chip waffles and being excited about his work—-this dad seemed tired and discouraged because all he did was take diaper pics and that he was so far from home and never saw his family. This dad also fought with his wife because the wife felt unsupported and lonely, but he was just doing his job.
There was this one moment where Kennedy goes to visit her dad in New York after everything blew up and she asks her dad to take a picture of her eye. In that scene, the dad asked her why that’s so important to her, but he does it anyway. Later, when examining the picture of the eye on his computer, Kennedy was looking at the eye, but she said so surely that it wasn’t her eye. She says it’s different. And it’s because it never had the spiderwebs that her eye had in her other life. It didn’t have that hopeful and wistful spiderwebs full of dream and possibility because this Kennedy was drained from school, tired from the many sleepless night, stressed from the pile of work and thoughts she had, and the lack of imagination and drive in doing something she was truly passionate about; this Kennedy didn’t have hope, she had lackluster. And by not choosing WA in her other life, she was able to foster that love of journalism and writing and she was able to live happily and comfortably with her parents who loved what they did and loved her.
But in this life, she chose WA, and that meant she chose that insipid life.
During this part of the book, I also enjoyed the heart-to-heart she had with dad.. They both open up about what he has been doing for her, but I like how he said that he doesn’t regret taking on his job because it has brought her happiness. But deep down, Kennedy knew, that wasn’t true. The title of this chapter was called, Then I grew up, and it was such a fitting title because she realized that her choice didn’t only affect her—-that the world didn’t revolve around her—-but it affected the people around her. The fact that she understood that, showed much maturity on her part and a part of growing up is to understand different points of views and how actions affect others.
And through all of this understanding and self-realization came the revelations of the perpetrator who’s been selling tests to other students. I had a lot of hunches that it was the actual Kennedy in this life who sold the tests. I just never fully believed it because I didn’t understand why that Kennedy would do it. I mean there was a mystery box she kept at the bottom of her drawer that just screamed big secret to me.
It started when Kennedy started to scoop into the mystery even more with Dylan. Together they figured out the perp was leaving the tests in books from the list of books a person should read before going to college. The same list Kennedy read. Coincidence? And Dylan read too. Romantic? I think so 😉. Then she started asking people if she was capable of cheating. And it had to be kind of hard to hear that yourself would cheat, even though this Kennedy knew she wouldn’t stoop so low. But then again, this Kennedy didn’t know what actual WA Kennedy has been through.
But then came the email in discovering that TSM4 stranded for the full name of the guy from the Magnum P.I. show and that the password was the name of the dad’s camera. Then everything kind of clicked together with the abbreviated “assignments” on her laptop in how it was actually the test and the book number. In the box was the money she got from all the tests she sold. And she sold it to help repay some of that money to her dad because she felt guilty. I think the intention of WA Kennedy was sweet, but the way she went about it was wrong.
Then she turned herself in to her teacher. But Mr. Fitz pretended to not have read her essay and I was kind of like, girl that’s your free pass. But I liked how Kennedy mentioned how even the teachers felt that pressure. They felt they had to keep up with the 85% acceptance rate and that’s why he wasn’t hard on her for what she did because the teacher understood that pressure first hand in knowing sometimes student crack. And sure, she sold tests, but she did it because if there’s too much stress. Things that are under too much stress, undergo strain and too much strain can lead to a rupture or the earth to shake. Kennedy’s earth shook and made her do something she wouldn’t morally do.
And can we take a moment to appreciate Dylan who also turned himself in for her. Or when he said that she wasn’t who she thought she was and that she was the reason he felt like he finally wanted to be at Windsor. My heart 💗
I felt the ending was kind of rushed once Kennedy got her acceptance letter to Columbia. I thought that when Kennedy finally got back to her actual life, that the book would pick up from the moment after she hit her head, so it was oddly weird that we just see Kennedy after one month. When she came back to her real reality, she apparently fainted from running down the stairs to her dad’s studio room with her Columbia acceptance letter too. This kind of made me question, what the other Kennedy was living through all this time? Did original WA Kennedy like this Southwest High Kennedy’s life or did she want to go back to her WA life as much as this Kennedy wanted to return to her Southwest High life? That’s probably confusing because I used a lot of Kennedy’s in those sentence, but I was kind of confused. But the book wasn’t about the other WA Kennedy, it was about Kennedy learning to find herself and be happy in her real life. I was happy for her that in both lives, she was able to achieve her dream of getting into Columbia.
Then she went back to Southwest High for old times sake. And I was just waiting for her to reconcile with Laney because they just had to make up. Again, I found it kind of weird how this Kennedy has been gone for a month and whoever was in Kennedy’s body had ignored Laney for a month. Like gosh, poor Laney was in a corner because she didn’t know if Kennedy wanted to be her friend anymore. I liked how Kennedy talked to her about being okay with her and Austin dating and how she understood. It took her “a month” to do so, but better late than never, right. I was kind of laughing though at how everyone was watching them talk and they were thinking to themselves, we lost the Spartan award.
But, Kennedy “crusher” Rhodes done it again. And I liked how this time, she invited on putting Laney’s name on the trophy right there with her. Laney always told Kennedy she didn’t need her name on the trophy, but by putting her name on the trophy this time, it emphasized that Kennedy knew that everything wasn’t always about her and that sometimes she needed to be the rock and do supportive things for Laney. And if someone says they don’t want their name on a trophy, they secretly do want their name on a golden trophy because who wouldn’t. It’s called girl talk, I’m I right 😉—saying we don’t want something when our minds are thinking the opposite thing.
I also liked how Dylan came into the newspaper room when they found out the news. I was rooting for Kennedy and Dylan and he just magically showed up in her life in just the best way. Honestly, it goes to show that no matter in what life you live, sometimes things are meant to happen, but it takes time. And I’m happy that maybe Dylan and Kennedy can find that spark like they had in that other life.
“Up until a few weeks ago, I was so certain about so many things. My future. My past. And all the mistakes I had made in between. I was so certain I knew what I wanted and exactly how to get it. But now I’m not certain of anything anymore. And I wonder If I ever will be again.”
(pg 385)
If there’s anything I learned from Kennedy is that in life you’re going to make choices. You are going to have this plan for you life. And sometimes that plan doesn’t work out or sometimes you chose wrong. But any decision is an okay design that we only deem wrong because we internalize all the possibilities of what could have been if we chose differently. We have to learn to live with our choices or our plans and be proud of them and realize how they made us better people. And if they were actually bad choices or plans, then we still have time to rectify them to improve our lives and to improve ourselves. Because that’s what people do. We grow, we change, we evolve, and we screw up.
And it’s okay.
It’s okay to feel like we chose wrong. It’s okay to think about how great life could be in some other life.
But we can’t spend our life living in a parallel universe where we think things will be better for us.
We have to appreciate the life we do have where things are good. And maybe that’s hard to see right now in whatever you’re going through or feeling about your choices or plans, but you will look back on your life one day and realize how far you’ve come, how much you’ve grown, and how many things you have to be thankful and grateful for.
I hope that you are living your best life in this life and making good choices that make you and those around you better people.
As always, with love,
Rating
4.72 Full Bloom Flowers
Plot: I loved the storyline because it was slightly unexpected based on what I thought the book was going to be about. I liked the overall message of the book and the journey of self-discovery and understanding that Kennedy goes through.
Characters: You have to love Kennedy’s drive and determination to do things. I can relate to her in her ability to give everything a 110%. I also liked Frankie the brother, he was truly a “constant” amidst everything and such a supportive person. Also, have to appreciate Dylan and his careless, but still cares attitude
Writing: Such a simple read and easy to get into. I also LOVED the humor and wit in this book. It will always keep you entertained.
Romance: Some relationship issues, with her first love, but then Kennedy learns to understand and accept it. And besides she meets a scruffy, rugged, high school prep boy, what’s not to love 😉