Review Detail

Fiona Doyle wears the scars of an accident from when she was young on her face. She writes songs, notebooks full, but doesn’t have the courage to sing them. She has a huge crush on Trent McKinnon but gets flustered every time he’s around. She’s slowly coming out of her shell and maybe soon she’ll be seen as more than just the girl with scars. What if that accident never happened? Fi Doyle is the best lacrosse player in the state, a sure bet for a scholarship. Her best friend Trent has been acting weird ever since that kiss but Fi doesn’t have time to deal with that. An accident on the field leaves her lacrosse career in jeopardy and Fi’s left to wonder who she is without her sport.

This book ended up being pretty different from what I’ve read before as it was two separate stories. It was told in alternating POVs from Fiona and Fi but you could have easily read just one girl’s POV and still had a full story. It made for some thought-provoking observations on just how much one incident can shape not only you, but the people around you.

I was expecting to like one of the versions of Fiona better than the other but I actually really liked them both. They were very different but there was enough of a similarity to know they were the same person, just with a different past. At first, I did find myself identifying more with Fiona and her shyness and insecurities than with Fi’s brashness and confidence but the more I read, the more Fi’s vulnerable side started to show. It was interesting to see how each version of the same character handled the problems that arose in her life and how those problems shaped the kind of person she was.

It was also interesting how the relationships between the characters changed with each version. There were people Fiona had as friends that Fi barely talked to, the dynamic between Fiona and her brother Ryan and Fi and Ryan was completely different, as was the dynamic between both versions of Fiona/Fi and her parents.

The plot covered quite a long period in a short amount of time. 3 years in a little over 300 pages. It did make the growth arc for both girls seem a little too fast and ended up being a little light on development for a lot of the other characters. It did, though, make for a fast read and one that was interesting and kept raising questions the whole book. It was a book about ‘what ifs’ but also about the type of person you would be under different circumstances and whether or not some people are meant to impact your life no matter what.